


I'll still love you in the morning

by NotASlut_ButWhoKnows (halesi)



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Aged up characters, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Fluff, Everyone Has Issues, Everyone Needs A Hug, M/M, Making Out, Rating May Change, References to Depression, Sex, Yuri is 22, Yuri making out with JJ is mentioned, otabek almost 26 and thinking of retiring, otayuri being a couple since chapter 2, otayuri growing up, sex with plot, slice of life-ish, the rest is drama, tw: depression, yuri is really afraid of getting hurt so he does and says tons of stupid shit
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-17
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:48:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 36,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24772657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halesi/pseuds/NotASlut_ButWhoKnows
Summary: Yuri likes Otabek.Otabek likes Yuri.But it's not that simple.This is the story of them becoming a couple, growing up and moving forward in life.
Relationships: Otabek Altin & Yuri Plisetsky, Otabek Altin/Yuri Plisetsky
Comments: 8
Kudos: 26





	1. Stay

Yuri Plisetsky could swear he was in a big fucking mess. Enjoying every damn second of it, but in a big fucking mess. Almost choking from the embrace of a tall, dark haired, handsome man, he could feel, first, the lack of air from his lungs, second, the hard beat of his heart, and third, the hot, feverish hands that refused to let him go. How the hell did he end up in that kind of situation? Maybe it was time for him to confess his feelings, maybe he would finally receive the kiss he always dreamed of, or even, maybe… Until the weight of the other body became a burden and Otabek wasn’t hugging him as he was now supporting himself all on Yuri.

“B-Beka?”

The tall boy took a sluggish step behind and then Yuri noticed that even with a mask on, his cheeks were notoriously blushed and his eyes so sleepy that refused to stay open.

“Beka!” Yuri took the other man in his arms as his legs gave onto his own body. He could barely stand up or talk. His body was burning hot.

*

“I told you, I don’t know what the hell got to him, he just came into my house and fainted at my door!” Yuri was now the blushing one as he held his phone tightly pressed to his ear talking to the only (second) person he could ever ask for advice. After Otabek appeared without any notice at his house and fainted right on him, Yuri was scared as hell. Scared as he hadn’t talked to Otabek since _the incident,_ scared because it appeared that Otabek walked all the way from his apartment to Yuri’s house on the biggest snowstorm of the year, scared because Otabek was feverish as fuck and he didn’t know what the hell to do, as he couldn’t take him to a doctor or buy medicines because of the fucking weather. Scared because he didn’t want to ruin their friendship for some stupid unrequited love.

“Yuri-o, focus.”

The soft tone coming from the phone made him sigh as he tried to regain his composure. Carrying Otabek to his bed was the easy part, but removing his big soaked coat, changing his clothes for something dry and warm and tucking him under the comfy tiger covers of his bed made his skin ache with so many mixed emotions. Luckily for him, he had some of Otabek’s clothes, some borrowed, some forgotten on his own house, some deliberately taken away from the oldest and claimed as a token of their friendship.

But the real problem was that Otabek was really sick and his temperature was still rising. So, Yuri did the only thing he could think of: took a clean, thin towel and put it on cold water, only to squeeze the excess out of it, and place it on the tall one’s forehead, wetting it again from time to time. Looking at him all sick and tired broke his heart. He kneeled beside his bed doubting for a second, but after a moment he caressed his cheek, tenderly.

“I don’t have any medicines with me and I don’t want to wake him up…”

“Yuuri, who are you talking to?”

“Oh, it’s Yuri, he has a… Situation… Viktor, stop it.”

Viktor's playful voice made Yuri roll his eyes, since he could even hear Katsuki's soft giggles from the phone while the silver haired one kissed him; God knows where. It was like Viktor _knew_. Knew that he HAD a mini crush on his husband, that he looked at Yuri twice for like a minute when he was changing clothes years ago and ever since, Viktor became more possessive of Yuuri just to piss him off.

“Cut the crap and help me, I didn’t call you to listen to your cheesy shit.”

Yuri talked in the softest tone he had as he was still with Otabek in his room. He heard them giggle and then Yuuri returned to the conversation:

“You don’t even have Tylenol with you? We could bring some medicine, but I don’t know when we could be there since it’s snowing very hard”.

“Yes, I think I have some left.”

“You know, Yurio, if his temperature doesn’t drop, you could give him a cold bath.”

“I’m not going to bathe Otabek!” The blond immediately refused as loud and soft as he could, while he heard Viktor laugh.

“I’m just saying, it could be dangerous if his temperature rises further. Check on him and just wait, that’s the only thing you can do right now. If he gets worse, we’ll take him to the hospital.”

And just like that the blond hung up the phone, feeling anxious with the thought of Otabek being sick. He looked at his friend again, sighed and then went to his kitchen to search for his medicine cabinet only to return as soon as he could with the whole box as he didn’t want to leave Otabek’s side.

He sat on the floor and searched until he found the suggested medicine. Then, he looked at the other from a safe distance fearful of what he should do next.

“B-Beka, wake up”. He kneeled on the floor beside the bed to touch Otabek softly on the shoulder, trying to wake him so he could take the medicine. “Please, Beka, you are sick, I need you to take this medicine”.

Yuri tried for some time until Otabek slowly opened his eyes. As he saw Yuri, he smiled.

“Hey, you came” Yuri looked at him perplexed, did he know he was at his house and not the other way around?

“No, silly, you came to my house” Otabek looked at him confused. Realizing that wasn’t helping, Yuri decided to follow along, and instead, smiled.

“Yeah, I really missed you” He said without thinking in a sad but honest tone. “Would you do me a favor? Would you please take this? You are really hot, Beka”. Yuri still talked in the softest voice he could ever do as he was more afraid of Otabek’s health than to maintain his own façade of bad boy.

“No, you are really hot.” Yuri dismissed that comment as the dark-haired man laughed weirdly and closed his eyes again, but, in a strange regain of consciousness, after a few seconds he tried to sat on the bed, rubbing his eyes when he finally could.

“I feel like shit” Otabek groaned grabbing the now hot towel on his forehead and putting it sloppily on the bed.

“You look like shit”. Both chuckled lightly and, before there was an uncomfortable silence, Yuri gave Otabek a glass of water and two pills. He took and stared at the little red pills in his hands, hesitating, trying to let the words come out of his mouth. The blond thought that he was just trying to gather strength to move again.

“Yuri… do you hate me?”

Yuri, who hadn’t looked at Otabek’s eyes yet, finally did in a mix of surprise and hurt. And what he saw was devastating. He thought the tall one hated _him_ , but the sorrow and depth of the voice of his best friend made his heart sink. He had not only a feverish look on his face, but also a really sad one. He hurried the dark haired to take the medicines, denying with his head, not ready to talk about _the incident_ yet. Otabek understood the silence and took the medicines feeling like the energy that he could pull up was slowly fading. He lied down again and was about to close his eyes, but as he saw the blond slowly standing, in an impulse, he took his hand.

“Stay.”

Yuri froze as he realized he had been pushing Otabek away. Hadn’t he come to his house in the middle of a storm while feverish? Hadn’t he texted and called thousands of times after Yuri tried to disappear from his life? Hadn’t he searched for him when they fought over a silly thing at the ring only to find him making out with J.J out of spite on a club?

Ah, yes. _The incident_. In which Otabek had joked about having a crush on a female skater and Yuri reacted… poorly to say the less. It all looked so silly from afar, but his friendship with Otabek was always on edge. They were so close and yet… He felt awful, like those horrible feelings of love were going to ruin their friendship. The thought of Otabek marrying or even dating someone else made him want to throw up out of anxiety. How could he be a good best friend when he wanted Otabek all for himself? He even got mad at Otabek for having feelings for someone else and said something hurtful before storming off. And Otabek _knew_ that he had pissed off Yuri in a different more serious way. So serious that when Yuri got home, turned off his cellphone and changed his clothes to go dancing all by himself only to find that stupid J.J, who he always knew had a crush on him, at the gay club. He wanted to feel desired, to feel ravished, to feel loved and, as he was being kissed and touched under the clothes by J.J at dark corner of the club, he could swear he felt that even if only for a second. That was until he saw Otabek in the middle of the crowd, worried, looking for someone. And then they saw each other.

Yuri was going to sit on the floor next to him but Otabek pulled him to the bed and hugged him tightly, getting the blond under the covers with him.

“Beka… You are hot…” Yuri tried to distance himself both physically and verbally, worrying that if he gave in to that hug, to those feeling, it was all going to overcome him and ruin their precious friendship. He actually thought he had already betrayed Otabek as he found out that day that he was gay.

“You keep saying that and yet…” Otabek stopped mid-sentence but hugged Yuri tighter. “I will apologize with J.J tomorrow. Just… Stay.”

They looked at each other, one confused and the other almost begging.

“Beka, your fever is getting worst” The blond blurted out without thinking while he, due to his proximity, could feel his body temperature. Or maybe it was his own body warming up as he felt really anxious about what Otabek was saying. The tall man closed his eyes, refusing to give in when he was falling asleep again. Unable (and even unwilling) to move more than his arms, Yuri placed his hand on Otabek’s cheeks, Otabek’s forehead, Otabek’s neck from time to time to manually check his temperature as if it that might change anything. At least he could watch him sleep. To his surprise, slowly, his fever was going down and now he was just gently caressing the older man’s face distracted only by the sound of his breathing also slowly decreasing.

He closed his eyes, enjoying himself, not realizing he was also falling asleep.

*

The next day, Otabek was still sleeping next to him. Only this time, they were even more intertwined in a hug. Although it was cold, they managed to keep warm by holding each other. He looked at the perfect tanned face in front of him and slowly moved his head to be just inches away from his lips. He imagined himself kissing and being kissed by Otabek in a tender way, and that those hands that were holding him from his back would caress his ass. And then, the kiss would get rougher, tongue on tongue, and his hands would now squeeze him under the clothes feeling him up, touching every little bit of him.

_Fuck. Fuck. Fuck._

Like an idiot he got hard only by thinking about Otabek as if his morning wood wasn’t already doing him a favor. Carefully he tried to distance himself from the Kazakh, but each time he tried to move, even asleep, Otabek hugged him tighter. And now he was just inches away from rubbing himself on the other, and from being just a friend to becoming a creep. He turned around as if turning his back on the other could make him less creepy or worse, but then Otabek pressed himself, hard, on Yuri’s ass.

“OTABEK, WHAT THE FUCK”

Yuri screamed loud enough for the other to wake up and release his embrace enough for him to jump out of bed, covering his own erection that could be seen from his pants. The dark-haired man glared at him, making the face he always did when he woke up too early.

He did it on purpose?

“WHY DID YOU WAKE ME UP? I WAS DREAMING ABOUT YOU”

Otabek raised his tone, but he was more irritated than angry. For Yuri, even mad, Otabek felt harmless. He rolled his eyes and closed them again, growling against the pillow that Yuri was sleeping a few minutes earlier.

“I WAS TRYING TO NOT RUB MYSELF ON YOU, JUST FOR YOU TO DO THAT. NOT FAIR.”

The dialogue happened so quickly that only then could they both process what the other was saying and, in Yuri's case, cover. Otabek raised his head again and they looked at each other, unable to speak or say anything to break the tension.

“Oyyyy, Yuri! We brought medicine! How is Otabek?”

A familiar (and annoying voice) came from the living room and Yuri recognized the murmurs and whispers the Katsuki-Nikiforov couple outside his door. Angry, he grabbed a sweatshirt, tied it around his hips and left the room to greet the uninvited guests.

“What are you doing here?” The blond asked really pissed, but only to Viktor who was already sitting on his sofa.

“Did you bathe Altin as I recommended? Not so good for fever, but great for a night of love.”

Viktor chuckled as Yuri was trying to think of the meanest thing he could say to him, when Yuuri intervened.

“Hey, Yurio, good morning. How is Otabek? We were really worried that you didn’t pick up your cellphone last night. We brought medicines and some soup. Is he okay?” Yuri glared at Viktor but managed to put a slightly annoyed face to speak to Katsuki.

“Yeah, I think he is better. I fell asleep when his fever dropped. He is… asleep now. I think…”

“You think? Did you send him back home?”

Ah, yes. Normally, he thought, everyone would expect Yuri to let Otabek stay in the guest room as usual, but by the question, he could tell that they already checked it out and he wasn’t there.

“Yuuri, don’t be so blunt.” Viktor chuckled looking down on Yuri’s outfit. “Maybe we interrupt them more than we expected”.

Yuri was about to explode when Otabek left his room.

“Morning.” He said coolly with his coat on. “I think I stayed long enough; I’m leaving now.” He bowed his head as a salute and goodbye to the marriage and nodded to Yuri, intending to leave.

“Beka, wait!” Yuri said without thinking, since Otabek was already near the entrance. Feeling the atmosphere was getting tense, Viktor whispered something to Yuuri and they excused themselves to go to the kitchen saying that they wanted to prepare breakfast.

Once alone, Otabek couldn’t look at Yuri in the eye. “I’m sorry I caused you trouble. I don’t want to get between you and J.J. If you need me to, I will apologize and explain everything to him”.

Yuri was already on the edge between being really pissed by Viktor and really turned on by his friend, so naturally, his face just showed the purest disgust and irritation. “Why do you keep bringing that idiot up? I just hooked up with him that one time! And also, how dare you leave when I don’t even know if you are better? You could pass out on the street.”

Otabek looked at his friend and hesitated, trying to understand what was happening, but also what could happen with this new information.

“Marry me”. He blurted without thinking, trying to convey something but not with the appropriate words.

“Fuck off” Yuri said in an immediate response, annoyed and now hurt that he would say things like that. He knew they both hated J.J, but saying that sort of thing out of relief was really insensitive of him, even if he wasn’t really dating the Canadian. Otabek looked at him surprised, because that was definitively not the answer he was looking for.

“Damn it, Beka, stop saying stupid things. I like you. I like you so much that it hurts. And for that reason, I can’t be your friend. I can’t hear you talk about how you like other people. I cannot bare when you are kind or nice to me when I know that you won’t even look at me. I’m sorry, I’m not that selfless. You always say and do things that end up hurting me a lot and I just can’t take it anymore. Fuck off.”

Yuri was upset. Yuri was really hurt. Yuri was still slightly horny from the tension between him and his friend. Even if at first, he wanted Otabek to stay, at that moment he couldn’t even look at him.

A sudden realization hit Otabek, who, to Yuri’s surprise, became irritated, something unusual for him. “No, fuck you, Plisetsky.” Yuri looked at Otabek perplexed. “You say that, but every time I hit on you, you always turn me down.” He could tell his friend was really angry and for once he couldn’t say or do anything as Otabek became even more irritated with each pause. “And then you go and make out with J.J without even giving me a chance. It’s like I don’t even exist for you. How do you think THAT makes me feel?”

Neither of them said anything and just stared at each other confused and angry. It was so quiet that they heard Yuri and Viktor's kitchen whispers and a soft "shouldn't they be kissing?" from either one of them.

“You like me… In that way?”

“Sooooo, we are going to go now” Vicktor announced appearing at the entrance (that Yuri and Otabek were blocking) holding Yuuri by the hand. The Japanese boy appeared sorrier by the interruption than by anything else. Viktor continued: “Altin, take care, don’t go out, it’s freezing, Yuri really likes you and won’t shut up about it, if you break his heart again, he won’t stop crying. Yuri, he likes you, stop being an asshole. Guys, use protection.”

“Ah, we left some soup in the kitchen in case Altin wants something to eat. And medicines too.” Yuuri added before closing the door. “Please, take care of our Yuri. Yuri, please take care of Otabek, talk to him.”

The four of them bowed as the couple left speaking quickly to avoid interrupting the young ones even more but leaving them uncomfortable and somewhat flushed.

When they were left alone, for once in his life, Yuri spoke first, even if he couldn’t look at Otabek in the eye for most of it.

“I’m sorry for what I said to you that day in the ring. I got mad thinking about you and that girl. The truth is I really like you and thinking about you with someone else makes me sick.” Yuri stopped at that phrase. He was about to ramble that if Otabek didn’t want to be friends with him because he’s gay, that would be fine. Of course, Viktor told him, and even Otabek told him that he liked him, but he was also insecure as fuck.

The older one took Yuri by the hand and caressed it softly as his apology softened his anger.

“It’s okay. I only said she was kind of cute, but of course you are the cutest.” He chuckled trying to make a sorrowful Yuri laugh too. “I like you, Yuri. What really hurt me was when you didn’t respond to my texts. You even turned off your cell phone or blocked me, I don’t know. And… _Actually, seeing_ you with someone else…” The dark-haired boy paused, trying to encompass how scared he was at that moment, with words that couldn’t even begin to describe the feeling. However, Yuri understood just by looking at him. The blond took a step forward and kissed his soft lips. The tall boy reacted quickly, hugging him from the waist and pulling their bodies together. Yuri gave into his body and caressed the dark-haired boy’s hair and cheeks sighing into their long-awaited kiss.

There was so much both had to say, but in that moment, all that existed was that hug as Yuri’s tongue began to trace and suck on Otabek’s lower lip and Kazakh’s hands began hiding under Yuri’s clothes, touching, caressing, outlining his skin. Otabek broke the kiss only to start kissing his cheek, and then coming down on his neck as his hands were getting even more confident at touching him. Yuri moaned softly as he scraped the dark-haired boy back and began rubbing his hips against the other’s.

“B-Beka” Yuri said in a moan, not thinking, just smiling in satisfaction. “I’m yours, only yours”.

The tall man put the blond against the wall breaking the kiss to look at him with his lust-filled eyes. “Tell me where he touched you, Yuri”.

Yuri looked at Otabek surprised but so turned on by that sentence. Jealously didn’t look great on Otabek or anyone, but boy, was he hot when he said things like that with his low and deep voice. Yuri quickly considered things as they were moving seriously fast and Otabek took that hesitation to cool his head down. As if the spell had broken, he stepped back and withdrew his hands from the young man’s body, one that was directly grabbing his ass and the other that was about to play with his friend’s nipple.

“I’m sorry, Yuri. Do you even want this?”

Of course, Yuri felt slightly irritated because he was really turned on by Otabek, but they both needed to talk to each other about what had happened. Yuri tried to enlist and rank his priorities. First, Otabek’s health. Second, talk about whatever the hell was going on between them. And third, being touched and fucked by Otabek and of course, sucking Otabek’s cock as he always dreamed of.

_Fuck, fuck, fuck_.

The blond rubbed his temples in frustration, trying to use his head to think.

Otabek believed that when Yuri was quiet - and not voicing his opinion in whatever tone he chose to- the problem was very serious. Not knowing what made him hesitate, he decided to go with his gut.

“Yura… I really like you. And if you let me, I would love to be your boyfriend”. To the blond the words sounded weird as hell. Not that he didn’t believe in Otabek’s serious tone and serious face. It was that Otabek joked very little and when he did, he could tell. So, the serious tone and serious face and the serious proposal meant to him that he was seriously honest. Why did he hesitate so much? In his daydreams and night dreams and even wet dreams he didn’t got that far. So, when he blurted out -like an idiot- “I do” as if they were getting married, the laughter he provoked on Otabek was the relief that he much needed.

“Hey! As my boyfriend you can only worship me!” He said, almost laughing in a playful tone. The tall one hugged Yuri, and he could tell by the proximity that Otabek was still hot (for him).

“Damn, Beka, why the hell did you come to my house yesterday in the middle of a snowstorm? Your fever got up again.” The Kazakh looked at Yuri confused, as the blond put his hand freely on the other’s forehead. “Do you even feel well?” It was sort of weird to have that kind of skin contact as they- or at least Yuri was always careful of his personal space and was self-aware when he or Otabek touched.

“I wanted to see you, so I came” And before the blond could protest, Otabek continued. “You weren’t abswering any of my texts or my calls. I don’t know, I don’t remember much about yesterday”. Yuri rolled his eyes and led his now boyfriend by the hand to the room. When they got there, the blond urged the tall one to lie on the bed. “Just… Rest. I will go to the kitchen and see what that idiot Nikiforov got us.” Otabek complied since he could take a moment to realize what had happened. While in bed, he could smell Yuri’s scent everywhere and, even if he wouldn’t mention it, that made him really happy. Even the sweatshirt he was now wearing, which he remembered was actually his but Yuri took it one day just because, smelled like Yuri. His train of thought stopped for a minute when he heard an angry yell from the kitchen and was about to get up until Yuri entered the room with a paper bag from the pharmacy and a glass of water.

“What’s wrong?”

Yuri was mumbling under his breath and what Otabek could hear were things like “Stupid Nikiforov” and “he is dead to me”. Since he knew his boyfriend, he just let it slide while Yuri searched the bag and got some medications. The blond sat on the floor and gave the dark-haired man the medicines and water but the other refused.

“I won’t take them. You have to be in bed with me.” He said with a grin to which, even still pissed, Yuri complied. The two settled in the bed and finally the Kazakh took the medicines without complaining. Then he proceeded to hug Yuri tightly.

“You should sleep, I woke you up” Now that Yuri was calming down, he was becoming increasingly aware of the proximity he had with Otabek. He was happy, that didn’t need to be said, but his body was still tingly with the need to have his arms around him. Otabek looked at the blond and nodded closing his eyes but he only did that to gently kiss Yuri on the lips. The blond complied sighing and now it was him who took advantage of the position they were in to feel Otabek’s body a lot more. He caressed his cheek, neck, then outlined the contort of his muscular arm and his chest. Fuck, was Otabek’s body always so hot? Without even thinking about it, the kiss got deeper and wetter and as the intensity grew up, Yuri felt Otabek’s cock harden against his leg.

“Yura” Otabek broke the kiss when he felt his breathing become erratic “Yura, I want you, but do you want this? Do you want to have sex with me?” _Fuck._ Yuri could feel the urge in Otabek’s voice, the desire in those three words when he said that he wanted Yuri. Of course, Otabek was a fucking gentleman who asked for his consent beforehand. At first (in theory) Yuri thought consent would totally kill his mood, but hearing him almost beg for more, and the way his boyfriend would even stop everything they were doing if Yuri said no, turned him on even more. But -because there is always a but- Otabek was sick. Yuri kissed him deeply one last time before answering.

“Fuck, Beka, I want you so much. But you are sick, your fever hasn’t gone down.”

“So? Let’s sweat it out” Otabek’s eyes were distracted as he lustfully looked at Yuri’s eyes, body and lips as he tried to focus. But Yuri could see that his flushed cheeks were not so much from him being horny as his fever wasn’t going down. The once cool and always collected Otabek seemed off.

“Don’t be an idiot, that’s a myth. You can’t “sweat out a fever”. You’ll just get worse.”

“How do _you_ know?”

Yuri now could see (and hear) that there was something bugging his boyfriend. That wasn’t a normal Otabek-like response. He couldn’t pick a reason for it. He didn’t know if Otabek was being a dick because he wanted to have sex, or simply because he was sick.

“Because I spent way too much time on the internet.”

Yuri told the truth but Otabek did not reply. On a hunch, Yuri lied:

“And also, J.J _taught_ me that”.

“MY GOD, BEKA, WHAT THE HELL. WE WEREN’T EVEN TOGETHER, YOU CAN’T BE MAD ABOUT THAT” Otabek didn’t say anything but he just put on _a face,_ an annoyed face, a pissed off face. Normally Yuri would get pissed if anyone else gave him that attitude, but his soft spot for his now lover, made him weirdly empathetic. Not that being empathetic was weird, but for him it was. After all, they didn’t talk about _the incident_. Otabek just said that seeing him with someone else hurt him and then they started making out.

“Not that I owe you an explanation but I thought you liked someone else. And that you would hate me if you knew that I am gay or worst, that I like you. The day it happened I was sad and lonely and of course I knew that idiot J.J had a crush on me from day one. I just wanted to feel loved and desired. Even if it was only for a second.”

“I love and desire you.” Otabek almost cut him off and Yuri decided to put a pin on that to come back later. “Fuck, Yuri, I tried so many times to make you notice me. But you always brushed me off.” _Did he? Oh, he did._ “And I don’t know how you came to the conclusion that I liked that girl, I just said that she was cute, and then I said that you were cuter. And you just cursed me and left. No texts, no calls. And when I went looking for you, you were with someone else. I thought you hated me for some reason. Or that I crossed some line, because you were in a relationship, I don’t know.”

“I thought you were playing with me.”

“I was thinking that I love you.”

Silence. For a moment, he became anxious. Was all this a product of Otabek’s fever? He wanted to believe in Otabek. He wanted that relationship for so long and so much but it still seemed that he was holding them back from the start. He was the victim here. Or was he? That fight wore them down as he was tired and Otabek was sick. He felt too vulnerable to even continue arguing about it.

“Otabek, you have a fever, you don’t know what you are saying. Go to sleep. We can solve this later.”

“It’s okay, I will still love you in the morning”.

Yuri rolled his eyes. It was noon by then. The blond felt that Otabek tightened his hug and listened as the dark-haired man's breathing slowed falling asleep.

*

When Yuri woke up it was already late, around 10 pm. His bed was empty and for a second he thought that everything that had happened had been a dream. He sat on his bed and rubbed his eyes, waking up slowly until he realized that Otabek was not in the room. He jumped out of the bed and wandered through all the rooms in his house until he found him on the kitchen floor sitting against the refrigerator while panting.

“WHAT THE HELL, BEKA” The blond yelled as he sat down next to him to feel his temperature. Now his hand wasn’t enough so he ran to the counter to grab the thermometer. “What are you even doing here?” As the dark-haired man did not respond, he looked around the room and found a glass of water. “If you wanted water you could have woken me up.” The thermometer beeped. It had almost 39C.

Shit. He looked out the window and the snow was falling heavily. It seemed that the storm was raging again. He gave his boyfriend some cold water, and although he struggled a little, he ended up drinking the entire glass.

He grabbed his boyfriend as he could by the waist and led him back to bed. He picked up his phone and called Yuuri again.

“Hello? Yurio? How is Otabek?”

“Fuck, Katsuki, his fever got worse. It was 38.6C five minutes ago. I think the medicine you brought is not strong enough.”

“Who is that? Yurio?”

He could hear Viktor’s soft voice before he was put on speaker.

“Have you tried a cold bath?”

“Are you fucking with me?”

“No, no, it’s to lower the fever. That’s why having sex while sick makes you get worse. You don’t want warm your body; you need to cool it. You didn’t use my little present, did you, Yurio?”

“Fuck off, Nikiforov”

Viktor laughed as he had put a bunch of condoms and some lubricant on the pharmaceutical bag.

“Put him under the cold shower and we’ll be there soon”. Somehow, Yuuri's soft tone made him calm down even for a brief moment.

Yuri turned on the cold shower and his bathtub faucet. It wasn’t going to fill up very soon, so he thought they could use both.

“Beka, let’s take a bath, shall we?” The dark-haired didn’t even respond and that broke his heart. He was awake but he didn't seem to have the energy to respond. Yuri grabbed his boyfriend by the waist and led him to the bathroom. He couldn’t just let Otabek bathe by himself and come back later, so he took off only his and Otabek’s sweater and socks and led him on the tub, both sitting in the cold water.

“Love, hold on for a while, this will make you feel better” He positioned himself behind Otabek to hug him, to provide him some kind of comfort and warmth but also to check on him closely.

“You called me love” muttered the Kazakh with his eyes closed and his body against his lover.

“Because I love you” Yuri almost whispered to his ear. Otabek didn’t reply but that didn’t matter. It was weird because normally he was the one who relied almost entirely on the eldest, but now, he was actively taking care of him and the dark-haired boy was letting himself get taken care off.

That was certainly a first for both of them.

*

When Yuuri and Viktor arrived, they found them in the bath fully clothed. Yuri was almost on the verge of tears because Otabek hadn’t responded for a while and thought that something bad had happened to him. The couple helped Yuri and Otabek get out, passing them towels and dry clothes but letting Yuri do all the “nude work”.

(“I can dry and dress _my boyfriend_ , thank you very much”)

Luckily for all of them, Otabek had passed from exhaustion but his body was again at a healthy temperature. They let him sleep in Yuri’s bed.

*

“Would you spend the night with me?” Yuri surprised the marriage with the question. They were sitting quietly on the living room drinking hot tea. “For a moment I thought I lost him. I don’t think I can deal with this alone. And the stupid storm… I mean, should we take him to a hospital?”

“Oh, Yurio, but you have done so well” The Japanese boy calmed his friend. “I mean, we can stay just in case, right, Viktor?”

“Assuming your now boyfriend sleeps with you and we have the guest room, that’s fine with me. I will call a doctor to ask what we can do with Altin, but I think he is fine for now. For a man who walked through a storm just to see you, he could be worse”.

Yuri didn’t appreciate the comment but he was tired enough to even put on a face. He sighed, relieved that he had someone by his side.

“Why don’t you go to sleep, Yurio? You look exhausted.” Yuri didn’t respond to Yuuri, but instead looked at Viktor, waiting.

“Honey, are you going to call the doctor?” Viktor, who was lost in his own thoughts staring at his cup of tea, in that moment realized that his husband was speaking to him. “Ah, yes, yes. I will.” Before he getting up, he leaned in to kiss his husband deeply for a moment, then grabbed his phone and went to the kitchen to make the call.

“Yurio, how are you feeling?” Now that they were alone, both Yuris could talk. Not that they couldn’t talk with Viktor there, but they teased each other a lot, which could cause Yuri to lose perspective.

“Scared?” The blond said still processing what happened. “I mean, I believed for a second that I lost him. And for Otabek, I was the dick the whole time”. Yuuri laughed softly at the comment although it wasn’t fun for Yuri. Realizing that his laughter was unwelcomed, Yuuri regained his composure and tried to casually say "What do you mean?"

“All the pinning, all the suffering. I mean, Otabek said that he liked me this whole time and I just couldn’t see it. And I fuck it up and got mad at him and he just crossed the whole city in the middle of a storm I think WALKING because no taxis were available during THE FUCKING STORM and he almost died.” Even thinking about it made Yuri more anxious and angrier at himself for everything. He rubbed his temples out in frustration.

“Oh, I don’t think he likes you. No one believes it. And he didn’t die, I think he just caught a cold.”

That comment from his very dear friend left Yuri frozen for a moment and looked at the Japanese man, stunned. “You don’t think he likes me?”

“Ah, I’m sorry, I mean, you two love each other. He loves you very much and you also love him very much too. Everyone always gossiped about that. We even thought that you were dating for the longest time and then you two came separately to our wedding. That was a surprise.” His friend's informal tone made him relax a little, but the expression of disgust on his face didn't stop.

“Who is that we? Why did nobody tell me?”

“I mean, Viktor always says that. Isn’t all his teasing about that? That you like Otabek? That you like each other?”

Yuri felt like a fool, more than he felt before. He put his tea down on the coffee table and hugged his legs bent in frustration.

“Hey, the doctor said that Altin should be fine. He didn’t show more symptoms so he should be cool by the end of the weekend.” Viktor walked into the living room nonchalantly until he saw the blond in the midst of a crisis. “What did you do to this poor soul, my love? Don’t you know that teasing him is what I do?”

Yuuri rolled his eyes with a smile.

“Nothing, I was just telling him that he did a good job today given everything. Maybe you should go to sleep, the worst is over. You can now enjoy your Otabek prize.” Yuuri was trying to cheer his friend up, but he knew that that would be useless until he got some rest. The Japanese got up and went to the kitchen to wash his cup and then excused himself to the guest room because he was a little tired.

Yuri looked from afar to his room where Otabek should be resting, with a sad look he couldn’t hide.

“Hey” Viktor sat next to him. “I don’t know how you did it” The blond raised his face and looked at him intrigued. “What do you mean?”

“Before calling the doctor I was just thinking about what would I have done if I were in your place and took care of Yuuri. I definitely freak out every time something happens to him so I would have lost it at the first second, probably”. Viktor smiled to himself and then to Yuri, patting him on the back.

“Stop with the pats. Don’t compare yourself to me, I’m obviously better than you” the young one growled making Viktor laugh.

“Anyway, the important thing here is that you stayed with Otabek. That you took care of him in the best possible way. At the end of the day, that’s the only thing that matters. So, don’t beat yourself up for whatever reason you are doing it. You finally have the boy you have been in love with for the longest time.” Viktor made sure to emphasize the last two words enough as if he was annoyed by the young man’s crush. The Russian got up and stretched a little.

“Go get your kiss. I’m sure as hell I’m going to get mine now”

And just like that and with a giggle that Yuri unfortunately knew meant sex, Viktor disappeared into the guest’s room leaving Yuri alone. The blond sighed, got up and decided to clean up. He took his cup of tea and Viktor’s and went to the kitchen to wash the rest of the dishes trying to remain calm. Whatever that meant.

He was mindlessly washing the same cup over again and over again when a sleepy Otabek appeared in the kitchen and hugged Yuri from behind.

“Yura, come to bed, I miss you”.

Yuri froze when he felt those muscular arms surround him and that voice that spoke to him with such tenderness, so full of love even between sickness and drowsiness. He washed his hands and without saying a word, began to caress his boyfriend's arms trying to guess with that if his temperature rose again.

“How do you feel?” Yuri tried to say the question but his voice cracked at the end and he started to cry softly, but Otabek didn’t realize it until the blond turned and started weeping against his shirt.

“What’s wrong, Yura? It’s okay, I can let you finish the dishes, I don’t care” Otabek couldn’t help but being tired and basically not realizing shit because he still was sick. “Fuck, Beka, you’re an idiot.” Yuri said between sobs. “How could you put your health at risk for me? And also, I’m sorry for putting you through that. I was so… so afraid of losing you. Losing your friendship, losing you. But I was… Also afraid of getting hurt. Please… Please, don’t hate me.”

His boyfriend didn’t say a thing. Maybe in his head he was actually answering Yuri, but what he did was enough for him. He was there as he always, hugging and supporting him. Yuri took the chance and still teary-eyed, put his hand on Otabek's forehead, cheek, and neck to check his temperature, which seemed normal. Otabek took the opportunity to kiss him tenderly while the blonde was at it.

“Do you hate me?” The dark-haired man kissed his head and denied it, holding him tighter. “I love you with all my heart. Can we go to bed now?” Yuri nodded and tried to wipe away his tears with the sleeve of his sweater, but his boyfriend stopped him and kissed his cheeks.

They held hands as they went to Yuri’s room. Yuri made Otabek go to bed and checked his temperature again, which to his relief, was normal. As soon as the blond lied down, the dark-haired man opened his arms to hug him tightly and intertwined in a comfortable embrace. The elder one, which was seriously tired, began drifting away once he had Yuri in his arms again and the blond couldn’t help but stay awake a little longer to watch him sleep peacefully. How many nights had he wished he could be in that position? He stole an innocent peck from his boyfriend’s lips who appeared even more relaxed by it and caressed his cheek and his hair. He watched the Kazakh sleep for a few minutes, trying to cherish that moment, afraid that it would fleet.

“I will still love you in the morning, Yura”

He was surprised by the mumbles in Otabek’s sleep but it was certainly something he needed to hear. The brunette snuggled even closer and could swear he felt the soft beats of his heart. Slowly, he closed his eyes and fell asleep in the warm embrace of the person he loved the most.


	2. I don't want to go

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to write the second chapter as fast as I could but I got distracted because I read (three times in a row) Play with Fire by GraveTiger. Great Mafia omegaverse AU, (but not so great for me as I used my working hours to read it LOL instead of writing the next chapter or working, for that matter). 
> 
> If you like omegaverse, I kindly suggest that you read it and leave your kudos and comments <3 
> 
> Anywaaaaaay, I hope you enjoy.

When Otabek woke up, Yuri was still fast asleep in his arms. The tired look on the blond’s face reminded him of the first time they woke up together. For him, it was a really cold weekend, full of brief moments, dispersed sounds, some scents and even the memory of the way certain things felt on his skin. He knew from there how Yuri’s hand felt against his forehead, the way his hair smelled, even how Yuri whispered softly “That’s because I love you” while being wet and cold.

But even if he forgot all the times he said before Yuri that he loved him, he knew when he woke up the next day that those stupid and incredible feelings of love he had for the blond were never going to fade. Otabek smiled to himself as he used those quiet moments to remember all the great things about his relationship with Yuri.

“Yura” he whispered softly against the boy’s hair, quietly enough so not to wake him, but firm enough to make him move a little. Yuri by now was used to the ways his boyfriend had to make him change positions, so he rolled over just enough to let him get out of the bed freely, as most of the time they had different training schedules. But Otabek wasn’t planning on leaving soon. He adjusted his position to hug him tightly from behind and started to kiss his neck slowly. In response, his asleep boyfriend cuddled up to him, even moving his head just enough as to give the dark-haired boy more skin to kiss.

Otabek hands glided under the blond’s sweater and started to caress his boyfriend’s chest and torso. What he loved the most about that position was that he could do everything. Kiss him on the neck, play with his nipples rubbing them softly, and, at last, he could let one of his hands slide under his pants, drawing imaginary circles on the skin of his lover’s inner thigh.

“Hmm, Beka” complained his partner, who was slowly waking up and refused to open his eyes just yet. “Touch me there”. The whisper was loud enough for Otabek to comprehend and so, he complied moving his hand to caress the length of his boyfriend over his underwear. As he got more turned on, the dark-haired man thrusted his hips just enough to rub himself all over Yuri’s ass and, at the same time, sucked on the blond’s earlobe, tracing with his tongue the soft tissue of his lover’s ears.

“Yura, do you want to play with me?” He whispered with the low voice he knew his boyfriend loved, but, to his surprise, he didn’t reply. Yuri moaned quietly but joyfully while rubbing himself to his boyfriend’s cock and then, just like that, appeared to have fallen asleep again. Otabek withdrew his hands from the blond’s body, trying to find out if he fell asleep again. After a few seconds of no response from him, he sighed and buried his face in the pillow, already defeated.

“Beka, I want you inside me” the blond moaned in an extra suggestive way while turning around with a devilish smile. Otabek immediately looked up as they were now face to face and smirked. He put his arms around his boyfriend’s body and grabbed him by the butt, pulling him closer.

“So, you _do_ want to play, Plisetsky, but dirty as always. I see, I see”

Yuri in response switched their positions to sit on his boyfriend lap. Slowly, he rolled his hips so his glutes would make friction against the Kazakh’s cock. “This is my house and I only play by my rules” he said with a smug smile on his face as he watched closely his boyfriend reaction. Otabek almost lost it as the blond knew exactly how to make him quiver. “Dirty rules” He replied as his breath allowed him. Yuri laughed joyful as he bend over to kiss his boyfriend while he lifted his hips just enough to move them at the same rhythm as the blond. The friction caused by the hips and the clothes made both pant as they kissed sloppily. Yuri was grabbing Otabek’s shirt while the Kazakh squeezed his ass with his hands.

With almost a year of having sex, it was no surprise that by then, they didn’t need to use much words to communicate the desire they both had. Otabek broke the kiss to look at Yuri in the eyes, ravishing him with only his gaze, which made the blond lose focus enough for a little bit, giving Otabek the chance to switch positions. Now, with Yuri lying on the bed he could lift his sweater and kiss every inch of his torso leaving wet marks all over him along with the love marks that were already there. Otabek paid special attention to his lover’s nipples as he played with them with his tongue and hands. “Fuck, Beka” Yuri complained in a moan, squirming as the foreplay made him even more sensitive. He was grabbing his lover’s hair as much as he could but the simple pleasure of being touched on his most erogenous places was a lot.

Otabek was normally like that, caring, attentive and so into Yuri in a way that he took his time when they had sex to caress and kiss every inch of him. But somehow, that day something was off. Yuri tried to remove his sweater as he was being touched but Otabek stopped everything he was doing to help him and to also take off his own clothes. Yuri got self-conscious every time his lover took off his shirt as he had a really toned body -a result of a lot of training- but all his insecurities faded when Otabek took those moments to also check Yuri out. Only this time he didn’t.

His boyfriend went down leaving a trail of kisses on his chest until he got to the blond’s navel, where he lowered Yuri’s pants just enough to expose his underwear. Then Otabek started to contour the shape of his lover’s cock over his clothes with his tongue, almost merciless.

“Fuck, Beka” Yuri repeated, only this time on a higher pitch as his boyfriend took off his underwear and pajama pants to fully suck on his erect length. Everything was going more quickly than normal and he could feel a strong desire on his partner as he scratched his thigh with one hand while, with the other, was inserting a finger on his hole all of that while sucking his dick.

“Beka, I want to do you too” the blond moaned as he couldn’t stop quivering and fidgeting, because the sensations were becoming a lot. But Otabek didn’t comply as he normally would. Instead, he inserted a second and then a third finger stretching him out. Normally they would’ve used tons of lubricant on that stage, but he didn’t even stop to check on him. Yuri wasn’t in pain as much as he was enjoying the unusual roughness of his lover but that wasn’t normal, nor justifiable. He was so aroused but also intrigued as something was changing and he couldn’t get quite ahold of what or why. Without saying a word, Otabek retired his fingers and replaced them with the hot and wet touch of his tongue inside Yuri’s hole. At the same time, he put the blond’s legs over his shoulders so he could lift his legs a little, giving him the perfect angle for rimming.

And then it hit Yuri. It was like they weren’t having sex together but with each other. 

“STOP, OTABEK, STOP” Yuri gathered the strength not only to ask him to stop but also to push his head away from his body. As he tried to gain his breath again, the Kazakh looked at his boyfriend kneeled on the bed as if he was lost and only then regained consciousness. Yuri covered his eyes with his forearm while he tried to calm down his own body, still shivering from pleasure.

“I don’t want to go” the Kazakh muttered as if he had taken a decision.

“What the fuck, Otabek, are you fucking talking about?” Yuri wasn’t as irritated or hurt for that matter as he was now seriously perplexed by what his boyfriend was saying. He lifted his torso from the bed using his elbows as a support to look at the Kazakh directly. “Are you breaking up with me?” Yuri’s mind was quick making serious and catastrophic conclusions.

Otabek shook his head strongly denying as he was taken aback by that question. He tried to rephrase what he was thinking all along since he woke up, but his boyfriend was quicker.

“Stay. If you don’t want to go, then don’t. Stay here, with me.” The blond collapsed again on the bed rubbing his eyes out of frustration. 90% was sexual and the other 10% was because even after a year, there was still noise in the way they communicated with each other. He believed that Otabek was upset by something petty and small but obviously important enough for him to be acting like that. He didn’t know what that was or cared for that matter because for him it was really simple, if he was having second thoughts on their relationship, they could work it through. To stay together, no matter what.

“Kitten, do you really want to...?”

For fuck’s sake.

Yuri rolled his eyes tired or turned on enough to still hear him say things like that. “What the hell, Beka?”. The blond moved quickly to sit on Otabek’s legs before the Kazakh could say something else. They were still hard and his lover called him by his pet name, so he knew that things were fine or not that fucked up _yet_. “You said that you would love me forever”. It was almost instinctual the way the Kazakh grabbed the blond by his hips when he sat on him. Now Yuri was looking at him from slightly above as he lifted himself just enough to grab his boyfriend’s cock and guide it to his hole. He felt a little bit tight but the rimming gave him enough lubrication to be penetrated even if deliciously slowly by his lover. He felt Otabek huff and his hands tightened around his skin as he wasn’t expecting that move from the blond. Yuri took advantage of the grip the older man had on him and took his face between his hands, making Otabek look at him as he plunged to the base of his cock. Yuri was able to contain a moan long enough just to ask him:

“You said that you were mine as much as I was yours. Where the hell do you even want to go?”

He wanted eye contact, the roughness, the love his boyfriend usually gave him. Well, he got it. As if he had clicked on the right buttons and pulled on the correct levers, the dark-haired man pulled his boyfriend’s hip thrusting even more as he took the blond’s mouth to kiss it. The blond’s moans were hushed by that sloppy and passionate kiss as Otabek secured Yuri’s legs around his waist to stand up from the bed and put the blond against the wall. The sole gravity made his boyfriend’s thrusts even more deeper. Otabek didn’t gave Yuri’s lips a rest as he kissed, bite and sucked on them for the entire time as the blond quivered from the accelerating rhythm of his boyfriend’s hips.

Yuri was trying to not scream Otabek’s name by that, scraping without hurting Otabek’s back. But the fucker took that from him as he grabbed Yuri’s arms and put his hands over his head against the wall, intertwining their fingers. Otabek broke the kiss to look at Yuri’s eyes as he increased the intensity of his thrusts. “Yura, I love you” he got to say before he felt Yuri tightening even more as he came on his abs, following him closely after.

Both stayed still trying to catch their breaths and Otabek was gracious enough to lay Yuri directly on the bed and not letting him walk as he was sure his legs would fail him. The Kazakh lay down next to him right after, both looking at the roof still breathless. Yuri smiled, about to roll around to hug his boyfriend until he said: “Are you sure you want me to move in with you? Or you just said that to fool me into sleeping with you? Do you say that to every guy?”

_Oh. It was about that._

Otabek was joking, of course, but Yuri couldn’t help but notice a bit of insecurity but also relief in his voice. Instead, the Kazakh was the first to roll and hug Yuri tightly. Yuri really wanted to ask if he got all jittery because he said _my house_ instead of _our house_ earlier but bit his tongue as he already knew his answer.

“Today… Today is the 15th, right?”

“Today is actually the 16th… You never gave me an answer.”

“So, your lease expired yesterday. Beka, where is your stuff?”

The moving in was a talk well discussed in Yuri’s… Their house. As Yuri lived in the house his grandfather bequeathed to him, and Otabek rented a small studio across town, the obvious step for them was for him to move in with Yuri. Not only the blond hated that Otabek could be missing for days when he went home to clean, wash and grab fresh clothes for him to use when he stayed at Yuri’s, but the travel distance between their homes was also too long for them to just casually go back and forth. Also, he couldn’t just leave Potya all by herself. So, if Otabek went home, he always did it alone.

“Here” The dark-haired boy put his hand on the left side of his boyfriend’s chest where his heart was supposed to be, which made the blond roll his eyes with a hidden smile. “I talked with my landlord and extended my lease.”

Yuri stayed silent. Of course, he wanted Otabek to move in with him, to wake up every day with the love of his life. But maybe he wasn’t ready just yet. And the bastard understood.

“I’m sorry if I got weird… I was frustrated for a little bit but it’s your call and I truly respect it.” He kissed Yuri’s head and wiggled his way out of the bed. “I’m going to take a shower. I don’t want to go, but today is cleaning day so I better hurry before it’s late.”

Yuri watched as his boyfriend took some of his clothes from the floor. Before reaching the bathroom door he paused for a moment and shrugged: “And don’t worry about it. Sex talk is just that… Sex talk.”

Boy, did that sting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys don't know it, but it hurt Yuri so much because Otabek ALWAYS TELLS HIM THAT HE LOVES HIM WHEN THEY HAVE SEX.
> 
> Of course he means it. 
> 
> But sometimes sex talk is just... Sex talk.  
> One time while having sex a guy said to me that he loved me (not quite, he said that he loved me as in "te quiero" (not as hardcores as I love-love you) and I said that I loved him back because I thought everyone lied during sex. Turns out not everyone does that, and it got me into some trouble. 
> 
> This was going to be a 4 chapter story but as it developed I wanted to cut this on half. Next time we may even get to see some of Otabek's point of view.


	3. Stay for the night

When Otabek got back to his apartment everything was… Actually, everything was the same. His boyfriend usually complained when he went back “home” to do the laundry, throw away rotten food from his fridge (he always bought a large quantity, thinking that he would spend some quality time at his apartment), do some dishes and clean. It was basically a pain in the ass but he didn’t mind the house work. He threw himself on his bed and sighed as he extended his hand to the ceiling trying to reach for something even if he didn't know what it was.

For him the clock was ticking.

He was about to fall asleep again but then, he heard his cellphone buzz.

“Altin.”

“Yeah.”

“I have a gig for you tonight. Great venue, prime time. You can’t say no to me.”

“Don’t want to.”

“Why? I can smell your dirty clothes from here, you got back from your boyfriend’s”

“Fuck, Evgeny, do you keep tabs on me?” He could hear the man laugh at the other side of the line.

“I’m your best friend/manager/life coach. The cat is out of town and this mouse needs to go out and make other people have fun. The big producers are going to be there, if they like you, and I know they will, you can say goodbye to crappy clubs and join the big leagues.”

Otabek replied with silence.

“Also, you owe me. Also, I already post it on Instagram.” And then he heard a click. Evgeny hung up.

Fuck you, Evgeny.

He checked on his friend’s Instagram account and saw the place and time he was going to be DJing. He even made a flyer out of it and posted it last night. That fucker. But he really got him a good venue and a good time to be playing. Otabek considered it for a few seconds, before standing up to find a jacket that didn't smelled like sex. He needed a fine set list for tonight but also some washed clothes.

*  
Where is Otabek? He should be here by now, right? ”

Yuri, who had been doing warming lapses across the ring approached to Mila and Yakov as they were sitting on the bench, discussing something. Mila had retired from staking a couple years ago and was now the protégé of Yakov, coaching the new talents.

"He called in sick" Yakov replied not giving it much importance. Yuri looked obfuscated but didn’t say a word as he skated away. Did Otabek got that mad about him not moving in?

Yuri started his training a little unfocused enough for Yakov to scream at him more than he usually did. He missed the music cues, fell on all of his landings, turned when he shouldn’t, pre-rotated too much or too little. He tried to be there, but Otabek not showing up (and not telling him) bugged him a lot.

“Yuri, the nationals are approaching and you want to go the Grand Prix with that form? Take a break.” Yakov barked for the last time before Yuri finally, after hours of falls and bruises, accepted.

Obviously, the blond was pissed but he couldn’t stay focused on his routine. Mila watched from afar and, when she considered the blond was a little more calmed, she approached to give him a bottle of water.

“Hey. I heard your boyfriend is playing tonight at The Velvet. You must be pretty excited, right?”

Yuri looked at her angry and confused.  
As he had a great relationship with Mila he could control, more or less, his facial expressions.

“What are you talking about?”

The woman took out her phone, and in a few seconds, got to the flyer.

“The dude who’s always with him when he DJs published it yesterday, but now everyone is talking about it. Our little Beka is not that little anymore.”

Yuri couldn’t believe it, so he took out his own phone only to discover notifications from his fanclub. His fans were not only raving about Otabek’s promising DJ career but also about the possibility of seeing Yuri there or at least that there were going to be pictures of Yuri there. Normally they respected his privacy to some extent but the venue was too well known for it to be ignored. Even Otabek-Fucking-I-Hate-SNS-Altin posted it on his own Stories not that long ago. The same flyer, nothing else.

As Mila could see some frustration penting up from Yuri’s face, she was quick to say “You could make a surprise visit to your man with me and Sara.”

Yuri did feel link drinking.

*

Only when the song changed, Otabek heard the bangs on his door.  
“Fuck, Evgeny, don’t act like you don’t have the key” Otabek said as he opened the door. His friend let himself enter and immediately layed down on Otabek’s couch. “I _tried_ to respect your privacy. Why do you even still live here? This place is shit.”

Otabek rolled his eyes and went to the kitchen to grab a couple of beers. It was 6 in the afternoon already and he knew the drill. He gave his friend a cold one and went to his room to grab his laptop.

“How’s the set?” When he came back the Kazakh pushed the Russian’s feet away from his coffee table, as he always did, and connected his computer to the sound system letting it play. As the music engulfed the entire room and Otabek made some slight last-minute changes, they talked.

“Don’t you trust my talents?”

“I don’t trust you getting rusty from being all lovey-dovey with your boyfriend and ignoring what could be your big break. Have you even talked to Blondie about it?”

“Not today, no.”

“Good.”

Even if it seemed unlikely, Otabek liked his friendship with the Russian. He moved from Almaty to St. Petersburg three years ago trying to make the most of his last skating years. With almost 26 it was hard for him not to feel the passage of time in his joints, even more so after getting injured from scary falls. He could still skate professionally and do other stuff besides competing like Mila did. But for him it was hard to not push himself. He was still “young” if he considered Plushenko retired at age 31 like many other male skaters did but as he grew up, he felt the fire of the skating passion to be fading away. He moved to a big city where he only knew other skaters -included his now-still-22-fresh-boyfriend- whose lives revolved around skating. He was away from his home, his family, his friends and even his “normal” life. It was like he was on borrowed time. Or at least he felt that way.

“That mix is sick, turn it up.”

That’s why he liked Evgeny. A normal friend who he met on his first year in Russia while clubbing and trying to discover the local scene. The bonded through music, guided him through venues on the very few nights he had to stay awake to listen to other DJs and even DJ himself. He went to his competitions to cheer on him every now and then, and that’s how he met Yuri. He was the one who told him where Yuri was when they fought on that terrible night when he found him with JJ. Evgeny refered to that night as “the debt Otabek owed him” when he was sure it was more likely a thing of luck. If he ignored the fact that he was lousy and nosy as fuck, he could even be considered a great friend.

They drank until it was late enough and Otabek changed outfits to his iconic leather jacket, a plain white t-shirt and black skinny jeans. He put his things on a leather bag and they were about to leave when Otabek stopped. “Fuck, where is my phone? I forgot to tell Yuri.”

“I have it with me. I’m sure he heard about the event by now. He must be waiting for you already.”

Otabek wasn’t drunk. He couldn’t be if he wanted to perform his best. But decided to listen to his tipsy side and shrugged it off as they called a cab and went to the club.

“Who are those big producers anyway?”

“Oh, you are going to love her.”

*

“You, old hag. Just because you are done with skating doesn’t mean that you can smoke like that.” Yuri scrunched his nose as they waited in line to get in and Mila started smoking. Not that he didn’t like the smell of smoke, just what it meant. With Katsuki and Nikiforov married, and the other skaters he grew with retiring or changing careers, every day he felt like the people he loved the most were drifting away. He was only fucking 22 and he felt old already.

Sara and Mila laughed about something irrelevant to him and he took out his phone to look at his SNSs trying to find something interesting. He checked on Otabek’s Instagram and even saw that he posted the flyer on his feed and made his account public. So now his fanclub was going insane, writing him the most indecent messages on their pictures together. Yuri found that equally amusing as annoying, as he knew how people on the internet could be. Even if he hated how other people threw themselves at his boyfriend in languages he didn’t even knew existed, he liked that other people appreciated his boyfriend’s jawline, undercut and even broad back. Obviously, Yuri had fine taste. As they moved a little in line, Yuri stalked a more recent fanclub of Otabek, one that didn’t follow his career in skating but as a DJ. It must have been someone close to him as they always posted some really fine photos of him, announced where he would be playing next and always had backstage photos of him. The last update was a Story, three minutes ago. An Otabek’s candid photo where he had a cigarette on hand and was laughing with people he didn’t recognize. What Yuri did recognize was the venue’s sign behind him. Meaning he was close.

Yuri excused himself and without saying anything more, walked out of the line to search for his boyfriend. But he wasn’t there nor anywhere near.

“What’s wrong, Yuri?” Mila asked when the blond came back.

“Nothing.” He replied quietly. “I thought that I had seen him.”

It was 11:15 and there were only some minutes left until he began playing.

Beka, where r you?

He texted his boyfriend.

But he didn’t reply.

*

When Otabek changed places with the opening DJ he could see that the venue was already full. Of course, The Velvet was extremely popular and exclusive but he had been there for a couple of times and the music was good, but the people went mostly to get trashed while listening to the hottest hit of the moment, not to hear some underground DJ. He talked for a little bit with the other DJ, who he recognized as they had played together at another place.

The girl left a mix playing so that gave him a couple of minutes to get set before starting. What he loved about being a DJ was to be able to be in the center of everything. He had recognition but he wasn’t the main act, the music was. He didn’t’ even bother to look at the crowd as he already knew that no one was really paying attention to him. He did consider that there was going to be someone big on The Velvet, but as his source told him (Evgeny), she would be in there to have fun, not to sign on some strange DJ. He slowly faded the other girl’s mix which made the crowd annoyed for a bit until he turned up his own set, starting with a nice and danceable beat. They always loved that deception followed by nice tunes to dance.

He was focused and he loved the thrill that came with being able to “control” a crowd’s mood. To be hearing what he actually wanted to hear when he was clubbing. He described his music to friends as “something good to dance while intoxicated”. The emphasis on the good part was important.

Of course, he had a setlist prepared but it all could change suddenly depending on the people that went there, the mood of the crowd. He never played the same list twice and he held pride on making every single night a whole experience. He shifted the beat introducing a slowly and seductive song that he described as the song he would like to hear while grinding his boyfriend on a club. Before he could even stop to think about that, a hand tapped on his shoulder and he rose his face from his laptop to see his friend Evgeny with two women and a man. Otabek took off his headphones and they shook hands and introduced themselves. He recognized the faces before the names as they were some of the most prominent DJs of the moment, but what surprised him the most was being introduced to the brunette woman who was laughing by his side. He showed just a faint smile as he was shaking Sátina’s hand but was absolutely thrilled.

After everyone but Evgeny, left the stage, he laughed out of excitement with his friend, who put his arm around Otabek’s shoulder. Evgeny shoved Otabek his phone on his chest while he whispered something to his ear which Otabek couldn’t decipher because of the loud music. He could tell by the proximity that his friend was already wasted or at least highly inebriated. The Russian put his index and middle finger on his own lips forming a V, a sign of smoking, and Otabek nodded gesturing him that he would join him later. The Kazakh took his phone and rolled his eyes when he realized it was off, as it probably ran out of battery on the Russian’s pocket. He put it in his jacket and continued with his set.

*  
When they were finally in, some girl was still Djing. For a moment they thought that they wouldn’t be able to get in as Yuri was questioned by the bouncer, thinking he wasn’t old enough even if he showed him his ID. Once in, they even ran into Evgeny talking to some people and Yuri recognized him because he pestered Otabek with messages and calls every now and then. They boy paid little attention to them and, if he did, it was to look down at Yuri for a moment before returning to his conversation.

The blond rolled his eyes. It was business as usual.

The club was thriving with lots of fancy people. Not that Yuri cared for that matter as he was used to rich people from the galas. But this was different. They were mostly hipsters and girls with really short dresses and high heels, so they stood up as they were a little more on the punk spectrum. Yuri had a simple and sleeveless black t-shirt and the skinniest and rippest jeans he could find on his closet, all paired with some black waterline and some faux leopard ankle boots. He was on a less-is-more phase where he used simple but skimpier clothes and still cause the same effect. His color scheme contrasted greatly with Mila’s and Sara’s, as they were wearing pinkish e-girl dresses and makeup. As a couple they liked to match.

They reached for the bar where they ordered a couple of beers and some shots at the request of Plisetsky who wanted to start the night hopefully and finally on the right feet. As they drank the first round of tequila, they heard the bass drop down and Yuri looked to the stage (annoyed) to find his hot boyfriend starting his set with the hottest smile on his face.

The public went crazy with the sound as the club got even more cramped with everybody on the dancefloor. Even if Yuri was really mad at Otabek as he didn’t text or replied to him all day, he couldn’t deny he was happy for his boyfriend’s talent. Sara and Mila grabbed Yuri to the the dancefloor to start dancing as they all agreed that nothing could be done to talk to Otabek until his set was over. All they could do was dance, drink or, hopefully, wait that Otabek would magically find Yuri through the public in the same way he did when he was making out with JJ years ago.

He started feeling a little loose as the beer and the shots made their effect and Yuri started to dance waiting, feeling, hoping for his boyfriend to look at him. Every now and then a creep would cling to him but he knew exactly how to shake them off by now.

The music was really good. He kept on looking on his boyfriend until he heard the next song which was ridiculously sexy. He blushed hard as he saw Otabek smile with such hot pride. Was he thinking about Yuri? The blond tried to distract himself by trying to chat with Mila and Sara but they were already kissing, dancing and melting in a hot embrace as the rest of the couples around him. If he looked at them with disgust it was mostly because of envy. His gaze went back to his boyfriend who was by now with Evgeny and some other people. A brunette touching his shoulder, laughing. When they went, Otabek turned his back to the public and he saw the other man put his arms around his boyfriend’s shoulders and brought his face close to the other. It all happened quickly but to drunk Yuri, it looked like a kiss. And then, when Otabek turned his back again, he looked at his cellphone and rolled his eyes, to save it then on his pocket.

Yuri couldn’t take it. He wanted to throw up. He really did.

“Mila, I want to go home.” Yuri couldn’t control his tears as he interrupted his friends making out on the dance floor. Of course, they couldn’t hear him with all the music, but they could understand the body language, but mostly the tears streaming down from the blond’s face. All they could figure out is that Yuri wanted to go out for a little bit.

Mila and Sara were tipsy but not as drunk as Yuri, so they took him out forcing their way through lots of strangers. Once out, the blond walked quickly away from the people gathering at the front doors to throw up on a nearly trash can on the same street.

“There, there, Yuri. You’ll feel better after you throw up, you’ll see”. Mila comforted him patting on his back until Yuri stopped puking. Sara was unimpressed as she took out a pack from her purse, and lit two cigarettes, one for her and the other for her girlfriend.

“Do you think he knows that Otabek is quitting skating?”

“I don’t think so. Yakov told me that Otabek hasn’t said anything to him, but that that’s what most skaters do when they start thinking about retiring. Why do you ask? Did Otabek told you something?” Mila helped Yuri to sit on the sidewalk and rest against the wall as he was too wasted to stand up again.

“I haven’t talk to him in ages. I just figured it out. I kinda did the same when I was thinking about retiring. Do you remember? Skipping practice, showing up late… I mean, at least Otabek has the DJ thing. And he’s good.”

“Yeah, he’s good…”

“And did they move in together?”

“No, I don’t think so. Yuri got weird every time someone brought it up.”

“Do you think is the jitters?”

“Do you think there is someone else?”

“I don’t think Yuri would’ve someone else. He drools every time he sees Altin on the ring. One time he picked a fight with one of the moderators of Altin’s fanclub over his best feature.” Mila rolled her eyes. “I mean, everyone has their own taste, but he kept babbling about how stupid that person was for thinking Otabek’s best feature was his face when he had his dick. He did that for two days, Sara. Do you remember? It was around your birthday…”

The girls laughed loudly as they gossiped through smoke.

“Hey!” Otabek shouted from afar as he saw them. He looked on edge and blushed, but maybe that was a result of the adrenaline of being on stage.

“Hey, nice set”. The girls said as he approached them.

“Thanks” He smiled politely as he kneeled to caress Yuri’s hair, trying to see if there was something he could do but all he got from the blond was a type of grunt.

“Don’t worry, he’s wasted and just threw up. Do you want a smoke?” Otabek looked at the girls and accepted the cigarette, pulling out his own lighter from his pocket.

“I didn’t know that you were coming. I mean this thing was sort of a last-minute thing.”

“Yeah, we saw the flyer and thought why not?” Sara hugged Mila and looked at Otabek playfully.

“So, are you quitting skating?” Mila only laughed at her girlfriend’s straightforwardness. They were all drunk, Yuri was probably too wasted to care and she really wanted to know.

“I don’t know, actually” Otabek said honestly. They were never close but he knew they were Yuri’s friends and he wanted to talk. “A big producer, Sátina, was here and offered me to sign on her label. That happened like five minutes ago.” Otabek looked really thrilled, so much that he couldn’t hide it.

“Well, congratulations, Altin, well deserved. Maybe that’s the next big step you wanted.”

“Thanks.” He said again, only this time a little more shyly. He put out his cigarette and threw the butt of his smoke on the trash can. “Is he yours or can I take him home?” He referred to Yuri. The girls laughed and Otabek kneeled again to carry him. The blond instinctually put his arms around his boyfriend’s shoulders. He was too drunk.

“Are you done for the night? Where are you taking him?”

“Home. I mean, my place. And yeah, I left some dude on my place as I saw you leaving. I already have my stuff.”

“Take good care of him.”

“I always do”.

And so, Otabek took Yuri home.

*

Yuri woke up to a weird smell. Actually no. It smelled like Otabek, but all the way. And of alcohol. Sex. And smoke. The sheets felt different, the man he was hugging also felt… different.

Yuri opened his eyes disoriented and, as he could finally see, he was at Otabek’s room hugging, well, not Otabek, but his pillow. He was alone in bed. As he pulled up to rub his eyes, he realized he was naked and covered only in one of his boyfriend’s old shirts. At least that what he assumed, as it smelled like him but he hadn’t seen the Kazakh wearing it.

His room was so… Otabek-like. He had few stuff but his desk was covered in things that Yuri could only describe as DJ things and his wall was covered in skating trophies, family photos, and also, some scrapes from his hometown’s newspaper announcing Otabek’s winning gold at so and so competition.

Yuri lay down again nuzzling to the pillow that smelled the most like his boyfriend. Was this the way the Kazakh felt when he woke up at Yuri’s house? Refusing to think about last night just yet, the blond closed his eyes and moments later, Otabek (and the smell of smoke) came through the door. He heard his boyfriend hum and grab something on his desk, but, when he thought the other was leaving, the Kazakh approached the seemingly-still-asleep Yuri to kiss him on the lips. The blond responded to that kiss and shyly moved his hand to caress his face. He felt Otabek smile through his lips.  
“Give me two seconds, love.”

Yuri opened his eyes in time to see Otabek drop what appeared to be a mini keyboard on the floor and to put his cigarette (still lit) on an ashtray by the bed. Then, the Kazakh put his legs beside the blond’s hips on the bed and took his hands, putting them above Yuri’s head while leaning on him to kiss him deeply.

Otabek was happy. And he knew because he felt the Kazakh’s stiff cock rub on Yuri’s naked butthole through his jeans while he kissed him. Yuri wanted to break the kiss but couldn’t. It was weird to still feel tipsy at whatever hour in the morning that was. Otabek was the one who felt him resist a bit, but broke the kiss only to smile at him.

“Hey, good morning, beautiful.”

Yuri was not happy. He looked resentful at Otabek’s happiness but mostly at what appeared to be three love marks on his neck.

“Who did that to you, Otabek?” The sorrowful tone on the blond’s voice made his boyfriend get scared and look guilty right after. Yuri was about to cry when the older man started to babble.

“You did. On the cab. I mean, you wanted me to touch you, and I really wanted to, but you were so drunk and I didn’t want to take advantage of you because of that. I mean, we are a couple so I thought... You did rubbed me off on our way here. And I tried to resist, I swear. Did I do wrong? I’m sorry, Yuri.”

It was too late. The tears started to stream at his face as he wiggled his way off the bed but stumbled on his way out. Otabek was quick and apparently not drunk or hungover, as he followed Yuri to sit on the floor with him, trying to make the blond look at him.

“Why did you kiss Evgeny on the club? Why are you smoking? Who are you?”

That question made Otabek went soft. He looked at Yuri between disgusted and baffled. “I have never ever kissed that bastard. I smoke because I want to. And I’m your boyfriend.” The Kazakh paused for a second. “What’s wrong, Yuri? What’s happening? What did I do wrong? Don’t cry, Yuri”.

The dark-haired man was trying everything he could to make up for the blond but apparently, he only made things worse as he started to cry even harder.

“You used to call me Yura or Kitten and love me with all your heart and now you go out and kiss other men and call me Yuri and hate me because I forgot about your stupid lease.”

“Yura…”

“Don’t lie to my face! I saw you two kissing after some pretty girl was all over you on the stage. Just say it, Otabek, that you want to breakup with me.”

There was so much information for Otabek to grasp on and Yuri was crying his heart out and he didn’t know how to handle that. If he didn’t manage that conversation well, he felt he could lose the love of his life.

“Yura, I don’t want to breakup with you. I love you with all my heart. Please, please, please, let’s talk this through. The only person that I’ve kissed EVER in life and all multiple universes is you.”

Otabek caressed his boyfriend’s hair and kissed his forehead trying to make the blond look at him. “Please, baby, Kitten, Yura, love. Please, I love you.”

Yuri knew that hyperbole wasn’t true, but it did make him calm down and even chuckle a little. He was about to hug his boyfriend when they heard a loud noise from the other side of the door.

“Beeeeeeeeeksssss, I brought champagne, let’s celebrate!”

That was Evgeny, who let himself enter to his apartment. Otabek knew, and Yuri knew.

The blond fumed at Otabek with his gaze before pushing him away. Yuri ran and locked himself on the bathroom. If he could’ve he would’ve left Otabek’s apartment but he only had a shirt on and was now furiously crying again.

“What?” The Russian peaked through the door to find Otabek staring mad at him. “Oh, is Blondie here?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO
> 
> I don't know where this story is going. Join me on this trainwreck of angst and suffer, shall we?
> 
> I wanted them to grow up together, but I realized that growing up sometimes means leaving some things that you love behind. I mean, Otabek is almost 26 in our story's time. He wants to sleep on one bed. He needs consistency on his life.
> 
> I miss smoking and throwing up outside of some fizzy club so I projected myself a lot. Sorry for all the people smoking. Don't smoke, it's bad for your lungs.


	4. The beginning of the end

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll make the chapters shorter so that way I can post them more often as this is going to be a long fanfic lol. I hope you enjoy it.

Yuri was devastated with angry tears streaming down as he heard a faint conversation through the bathroom door.

“You know you have the worst timing, right?”

Someone out there shrugged.

“Have you told him? He should be happy to know that he is not going to be some unknown dj’s boyfriend anymore.”

He heard a door closing and decided to go out. Yuri found his clothes around the room in what appeared to be a familiar straight line from the door to the bed.

“You respect me? That’s bullshit.” He mumbled as he put on his clothes as fast as he could. He found his cellphone beside the ashtray near the bed, with nothing more than 15% of battery and, in his phone case, he had the exact money that would allow him to go to just one place. He reeked of alcohol, sweat, some puke and lots and lots of smoke, but he (and the people around him) would have to put on with the smell until he got home.

*

“Yurio! What a surprise!” Yuri ended up sitting on the front stairs of Yuuri and Viktor’s townhouse. Midway there his phone’s battery ran out and the only place he could afford to go was the Katsuki-Nikiforov’s place as it was half the distance between his and Otabek’s apartment. The blond didn’t say anything but his face, puffy from crying, and with a greyish look from the night out said enough. The couple looked at each other, both holding bags of produce, as it was already 7 pm and the blond stayed in silence.

“I don’t think he would kiss him. I mean, he is just his nosy friend, right?” They were now all sitting on their living room each one with a cup of tea on their hands. They were not huge fans of the beverage, but, as Yuri got older, he found comfort for much of his problems on something as equally warm as his soul. Because Yuri visited A LOT -even if he didn’t want to admit that- they always had the house stashed with a wide variety of flavors.

“Yeah, and we’ve seen how Otabek looks at Yuri. Oh, to be young and so filled with lust.” Viktor said nonchalantly, which earned him a kiss from his spouse.

They had lent him clothes and a shower so he could be less stinky and more calmed before they got to talk. And when he finished, Yuri sat there, looking more miserable and angrier than ever with a sweater with Makachin’s face imprinted on it and grey sweatpants too large for him. He had his hair thrown up on ponytail. As Viktor and Yuuri talked, he looked -bored and unimpressed- at them since he valued their marriage with equal parts of contempt and envy. They were so saccharine in a way that made him want to barf with Viktor always crying to get Yuuri’s attention and Katsuki instantly melting when his and Viktor’s gazes met. They were borderline super boring and domestic. The only passion they still had was when they went basically anywhere and one of them would get possessive when someone else looked at their partner with the slight interest. Then, they would get terribly inappropriate, each in their own way, in a public space, which made Yuri incredibly embarrassed more than once. One would think that after so many years of marriage they would’ve stopped acting like horny teenagers but that wasn’t true. He couldn’t go to the rink’s bathroom without having the slight fear he would hear or find them having sex AGAIN.

His relationship with Otabek was nothing like that. And that made him wonder.

“Have you heard anything from him?”

“Hmm?” Yuri wasn’t paying attention; instead, he was staring at them with the most bored look on his repertoire of stares while thinking about their stupid marriage. “No. My phone’s dead. I left the charger at home.”

“Oh, and you, Vitya? Have you heard anything on the rink?”

Right. Viktor now worked there as one of the most famous choreographers as he retired years ago while Yuuri was now a skating-focused ballet teacher in a dance school nearby.

Nikiforov looked pensive. “I’ve heard some things about Otabek, but mostly gossip.” Yuuri, who was snuggling against Viktor’s chest, rose his head to look at him. “Oh, that he is retiring, right? I’ve heard that too. He’s about that age”.

“What age? What the fuck are you talking about?” Yuri’s interest peaked and made him upset. That made the couple uncomfortable, in the same way most parents feel when they realize they _need_ to have _the sex talk_ with their children. They looked at each other and _knew_. And that made Yuri even angrier.

“Oh, Yurio” That condescending tone from the Japanese didn’t sit well with him. The couple changed positions, now both of them were well sat on their places with a serious look.

“When figure skaters reach certain age… They need to think about their future…”

“I don’t have 12. Don’t talk to me like I’m stupid.” Yuri cut Viktor off with almost a growl.

“Then, what do you think about Otabek’s performance lately? Do you see him as equally committed to skating as a few years ago? As a year ago before his hip injury? Yurio… You need to consider that maybe for him…”

Before Viktor could even continue, Yuri interrupted him again.

“But Plushenko retired at 31. And stupid J.J is only a year older than Otabek and he’s.still.skating.”

“Yeah, and what good did that made to the Russian team on the Olympics? Everybody is different, Yurio. I retired after competing with Yuuri, Yuuri retired a year later, because both of us already got what we wanted from skating. Some skaters retire because of injuries, like Kim Yuna. And even some retire to pursue other careers. No matter the age.”

“Think how hard it must be for Otabek to maintain his title as Kazakhstan’s national hero.” Yuuri quickly added to the conversation. “I don’t think there’s any shame in retiring with gold medals and grace.” 

They could tell by Yuri’s look that he was mostly hurt than angry by all the things they said. After all he was still young, fresh, with a tip-top body, not even injured yet as so many of skaters his age already were.

“But then again, this is mostly gossip, Yurio.” Viktor added in a soft tone, trying to ease the conversation. “Every now and then we think someone is going to retire and then they surprise us, giving even more of them the next season and bringing home even more gold medals. But don’t throw away the option, as _professional_ skating” Yuri knew what he meant by that “is a career with an expiration date. Eventually Otabek will retire and _you’ll_ do too.”

Yuri didn’t say anything. He just sulked on the couch, knowing that what they said was true to some extent. When he did talk, after a minute or two, was in a mumble.

“Otabek did talk about moving on. I thought he just meant that he wanted to move in with me.”

“Maybe he did, Yurio. But maybe that was only the beginning.” Yuuri stood up to sit next to his friend and hug him. Yuri let him because he wasn’t even in the mood to complain.

“Do you think he wants to move on... Without me?”

“I don’t know, Yuri. Do you?”

Yuri shook his head slowly. 

“Could you take me home?”

“Of course, Yurio.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At first I wanted to make this a fic with few chapters. Literally I wanted to write a chapter for every stage on this couple relationship: when they got together, when they moved in together, when they got engaged, then married and then Otabek being jealous and that leading to gorgeous angry sex, but this story got out of my hands LOL. 
> 
> So I don't even know what is going to happen LOL.
> 
> What are your thoughts? I think when you are not born "great" (i.e. Viktor who always earned tons of gold medals or Kim Yuna who once said that her body allowed her to do beautiful jumps with an almost perfect technique), it's easy to get discouraged when you get to the big competitions like the Olympics or the GPF but always earn the last place. Pichit for example. 
> 
> The dude was really good on Thailand so he got to all the international competitions, but was he as great as Nikiforov to be able to earn the number one spot? Don't get me wrong, I think in Pichit's case, he LOVES the spotlight so that keeps him going, but for Otabek who was always sort of "limited" by his own body, I think that could make him retire early. Or find passion in other careers that are not so competitive-centered but still allow him to show his artistry. 
> 
> I don't know. I only skated once and fell and broke my arm LOL. But I wanted to be a professional pianist growing up and one of my teachers wanted me to compete on an international competition. But of course, I wasn't great. I was good, yes, but great like the other pianists who were 2981327134871392 years younger than me? No. Of course I keep playing piano and getting better each day because I love it. But I don't go to competitions because I know they wont fulfill me ¿?
> 
> What are your thoughts? Am I just lame? LOL
> 
> *Btw, about the Plushenko retiring thing. I investigated about retiring in the figure skating world and turns out the dude was 31 and was about to compete on the Sochi Olympics when he fell on his warming up lapse and then announced that he'd retire. BUT. The dude already had had 15 (FIFTEEN) surgeries to still be able to compete and just had a back surgery before Sochi. I read that his retiring in the midst of the competition hurt the Russian team's points in some way. Hence, Viktor comment.


	5. throwing up emojis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I spent my entire afternoon writing this instead of studying piano. I hope you enjoy.

Otabek realized his set had finished a few minutes after Sátina left the stage, as one of The Velvet staff told him by tapping on his shoulder. Of course, he was thrilled and wanted to keep going, but there was another DJ waiting for his 2 am turn. As he left a mix playing, and gathered his things, he got to see a familiar blond hair accompanied by a red head hair and a brunette trying to reach for the exit between a hoard of people. Even if the club was well known it was also ridiculously small, so it wasn’t that difficult for him to recognize his boyfriend. He didn’t waste time talking with the next DJ, who appeared eager to do so. Instead, he went to the backdoor, hoping that he could avoid the sea of people and catch them at the entrance.

He was about to go out when he was stopped by another member of The Velvet staff and was told that he was being waited on the VIP room.

“I had no idea this place had that”. The staff shrugged and indicated him to follow the stairs, opposite to the back door. There was so much mystery around that indication that, even if he was eager to see Yuri and tell him everything that happened that day, he decided to go with his gut and see who was waiting for him.

The second floor had the same vibe of the first floor and also the theme of the whole club. Red velvet sofas, red drinks, red lights blinking to the rhythm of the music. The place was crowded but significantly less than the first floor where one couldn’t even step without being pushed around. The VIP area even had a little balcony where one could see the first floor’s dancefloor and, of course the in-turn-DJ. He wasn’t even sure who he was looking for but after a few seconds, he was enthusiastically reached by a brunette woman who grabbed him by the arm.

Suddenly, he was sitting on a sofa with so many other great DJs and producers like it was nothing. Oh, and his friend, who was totally drunk on a corner, was talking to other equally drunk DJs. Everyone had what they wanted. They were all chatting but when he sat, they turned around to greet him and ask him questions. The woman beside him, the brunette, kept his attention.

“So, I heard that you don’t have a label yet. But before any of these dofus try to steal you away, how about you show me some of your mixes tomorrow? And we could make a deal.”

Was he dreaming? Was his producer/personal hero Sátina talking to him? Apparently yes. The brunette searched in her pursed and grabbed a business card to which she scribbled an hour and direction, handing it then to the Kazakh while winking.

Otabek grabbed it, look at it, looked at her, and nodded with his normal no-expression expression. The woman just laughed. “I like you, would you stay to the after party?”

And that’s when the spell broke. Otabek put the card on his pocket and shook his head remembering he had a blond to catch. “My boyfriend is waiting for me downstairs, but I’ll see you tomorrow.” A faint smile showed on his face, to which the woman replied with another.

“Don’t be late”.

Otabek was still kind of shocked and only smiled fully and widely when there was no one around while climbing down the stairs. He pushed the back door and ran to the front hoping to be able to share the news, the thrill, the excitement with Yuri. He looked at both sides and only when he heard some familiar laughs, he could spot his boyfriend.

Click.

There was the sound of a flash and a click around him, but he chose to not pay attention to it, as he believed someone was taking pictures of some other person at the front. Otabek ran again to the girls and instantly kneeled down to see Yuri, who reeked of alcohol and puke. He was assured that the blond was ok and, a smoke later, side eyeing him and chatting with his friends, he decided it was late and that the blond would appreciate more being asleep at a bed than at the sidewalk. He grabbed Yuri and instantly melted off when the blond put his arms around his shoulders. He was smiling before but of course having him like that made his grin wider.

“Hey, kitten, let’s go home. Would you like that?” He could’ve taken Yuri to his house, but, as he had a meeting with Sátina early on the day after, he needed clean clothes. The blond mumbled something and snuggled to his chest while they waited for a cab, and the Kazakh in response kissed his forehead and rubbed his cheek to his boyfriend’s hair. Otabek could’ve died right there with no regrets as the day was filled with _almost_ all good news.

*

The ride back home got _dangerous_ as Yuri appeared to have woken up a little from any weird alcohol trance he was having and got quite handsy with Otabek. He wanted to kiss, to undress, to fuck, and while Otabek wasn’t against any of that, he could feel the stare from the taxi driver every now and then getting more and more irritated. When they reached home, Otabek put Yuri on his back so he could climb up the stairs and open the door. Away from all of the smells from the street, when they got home, Otabek felt the stench from Yuri. After all, as he was told, he vomited on a trash can.

“Love, can you walk?” He whispered to his boyfriend as they reached the Kazakh’s room. Yuri mumbled something that felt like a yes, so Otabek put him on the ground.

“N-now that w-we are home, let’s fuck” The blond proclaimed when he reached the floor, decided to make his boyfriend fulfill his promise of having sex when they got to his apartment. He undressed “sexily” in his mind but it was more like a wobbly dance from Otabek’s point of view from the door to the bed, before finally plummeting, naked, on the mattress. Otabek smiled to himself. Yes, that was his lovely boyfriend.

Before doing anything else, he reached for his closet where he grabbed an old shirt and sweatpants to make sure Yuri wasn’t going to sleep all naked and proceeded to try to dress him, which resulted much more complicated than he thought as the blond couldn’t/wouldn’t move unless it was for fucking or sleeping. He gave up after he put the shirt on and Yuri refused to move anymore as he hugged his pillow to sleep. He tugged him well as it was getting chilly with October approaching and went to his living room to work on the setlist he was going to present to Sátina. It was 4:26 am when he looked at the clock on his wall, which gave him 5 hours and a half or so to make something decent or at least present something.

*

He woke up at 9 am-ish having slept for only lapses of 20 minutes every two hours of so. His breakfast consisted on some toast and a cigarette which he lighted on his way to his room to grab a mixing keyboard. He was humming happily, excited as there was only half an hour left before his meeting with the producer. If Yuri was still asleep by then, he would let him stay on his apartment with a note that said that he was going to come back soon and maybe, even with good news.

He couldn’t resist, seeing his boyfriend sleeping so comfortable in his bed, with his clothes on his sheets, to kiss him. And he had even less willpower when he found out the blond was up and maybe ready to some action. After all, he promised he would fuck him really good when they got to his apartment.

But everything shattered in a matter of a second when Yuri not only woke up angry and upset, and sad, but also accused him of kissing someone else. He thought he had handled that situation well when said someone appeared on his door and the blond got mad at him again.

“You know you have the worst timing, right?”

“Have you told him? He should be happy to know that he is not going to be some unknown dj’s boyfriend anymore.”

Otabek was furious. He got up to kick his friend out of his apartment, at least until he sorted his things with Yuri. He shot the door of his room loudly to talk to his friend on the kitchen.

“What the hell, Evgeny. How many times have I told you not to come in like that? And Yuri now thinks that we kissed yesterday. What the hell is that?”

“Hey, calm down. I only came in because you weren’t answering your phone.”

Phone. Right. He had plugged the thing around 6 or 7 am, but never turned it on.

“And if we kissed, so what” The boy shouted to the direction of his room.

“We didn’t kiss! What’s wrong with you?”

“Gosh, Blondie always gets upset about every little thing. He should let you live your life. Now hurry, we have the meeting with Sátina at 10 am. Unless you want to go dressed like that?”

“Fuck, Evgeny. There is no we. I HAVE a meeting with her, not you.”

The Russian rolled his eyes. “I’m sorry, but who do you think introduced you to her and then pestered her to give you a chance?”

Of course. Phone. Sátina. Yuri must have thought that they kissed when they were celebrating on stage after the Russian gave him his phone. Otabek disconnected to which the Russian replied snapping his fingers in front of his face. “Hey, Beks. It’s time to go. We can discuss my role as your manager/best friend/life coach on the road.”

“I have to talk to Yuri first” Otabek’s face lit up. “And I fucking hate when you say that”.

Otabek ran to his room but, to his surprise Yuri’s things were gone. The bathroom was empty, his window was open. The blond must have gotten out through the fire escape.

Yuri was gone.

*

The road to the studio was silent. Otabek wasn’t just mad at his so called-friend, he was furious. When he turned his phone on, not only he had thousands of messages and texts from Yuri, but also, he discovered his once private Instagram account was made public and now had tons of DM’s, comments and followers.

Evgeny rolled his eyes when Otabek complained about him stealing his phone and making those changes. But more so, because his phone had a password.

“Please, Beks. Your password is blondie’s last name and his birthday. Could you be even more cringy? And I only did that to push your SNSs, get more people to The Velvet. And now, because of that, you have tons of new followers. That is going to give you good leverage with Sátina.”

“Fuck, Evgeny, I don’t even know if I want this! Yesterday I was only Otabek and now I must be a fucking DJ doing what a celebrity would do?”

“No, Otabek. Yesterday you were Kazakhstan’s National Skating Hero or whatever bullshit name they gave you. Today you can be whatever the fuck you want”.

“I want to be away from you.”

“Fuck you.”

“No, _fuck you.”_

And that ended all the conversations for the rest of the road. He was feeling remorseful even before they left because he didn’t know where Yuri was, but now an icky feeling started to agglomerate within himself. His gut telling him he did the wrong choice. He replied all of Yuri’s texts with millions of apologies (no wonder he was mad at him) and tried to call him every five minutes or so, but his phone was off. Or he blocked him. He texted everyone they knew to ask for his whereabouts but they didn’t see him at the rink (today they both had an early practice, he assumed Yuri would’ve at least came in late as the nationals were approaching) nor anywhere else.

Maybe he needed time. When did Otabek got so needy?

The meeting with Sátina went well. With her, there were a couple of people he had seen the night before and they all talked and laughed for a meeting that, to the eyes of Otabek, took too long. It was almost 3 pm when he got out. It was thrilling to hear that she was interested in his work, but, when she offered him to work as either a DJ, producer, or anything Otabek wanted, he took his stance and said that he needed time to think. As she felt pleased with his persona, the producer let him go only after she gave him her cellphone number and a deadline for a definitive response: “I need you to give me an answer before next Saturday, Beka.”

And the rest to him where mumbles without importance.

He parted ways with Evgeny not saying a single word and when he got home by 4, he didn’t have a single message from Yuri or anyone else about where he was. Maybe he was already home and not answering, but he talked to Mila, who was at the rink with Nikiforov and Katsuki, and she tried to call Yuri but his phone was off.

Maybe Yuri needed time. Maybe Yuri needed time. Maybe Yuri needed time.

Lying on his bed, he scrambled through millions of texts and comments on his Instagram and he found that he was tagged at a photo from yesterday at The Velvet. He looked through that person’s Instagram and apparently it was a fan who followed him around but only on his DJ gigs. There was no Skating-Otabek there. What captured his attention was one recent Story of him smoking and smiling with Evgeny and some friends outside the Velvet before his part started. There was even a post of him on the stage mixing.

He DMed the account:

otabek-altin: do you have pictures from yesterday?

DJBeksFC: !!!!

DJBeksFC: yes

otabek-altin: do you have one where I’m on the stage with a tall Russian who is hugging me? After I was introduced to Sátina.

DJBeksFC sent him a couple of pictures but none that captured the scene that bugged Yuri.

otabek-altin: Thnx. Great account btw, thanks for your support.

DJBeksFC apparently felt his disappointment because they replied:

DJBeksFC: If you want more pictures @yurisangels was there.

Fuck.

Not @yurisangels.

@yurisangels was a mess.

@yurisangels hated him.

After a few years of friendship and almost a year in an official relationship (one where everybody: friends, family and fanclubs included knew) Otabek became acquainted with Yuri’s fan club. They loved Yuri to their core and hated Otabek with almost the same intensity. Yuri wasn’t as private as he was, so he posted pictures of him and Otabek every now and then. Of course, there were fans who were incredibly supportive and even wanted them to be together even before Otabek _knew_ he had feelings for Yuri (shipping? He thought that’s what fans called it). But @yurisangels, Yuri’s biggest and most organized fanclub, didn’t. They liked every photo of Yuri, of course they did, but also, they replied to every comment he made on Yuri’s pictures with throwing up emojis. Every.fucking.time. Their pictures together? They said things like “Yuri, you look so cool, but you could get a better boyfriend” and throwing up emojis. Pictures where Yuri mentioned Otabek?: “Yuri, great jumps, but Otabek is [throwing up emoji]”. They cut pictures of Yuri and him on purpose and instead photoshopped every male existent ever besides Yuri. One time they even made for some minutes #BetterBoyfriendsThanOtabekForYuri” a trending topic on Twitter Rusia. But the worst was that they were the head of a fanclub with lots of members so, of course, @yurisangels wasn’t the only one who replied or did things like that.

Yuri thought it was amusing at best, but sometimes snapped when they questioned his taste in men. Thanks for being a supportive boyfriend, Yuri.

He got to his feed and found out that now that his account was made public @yurisangels commented throwing up faces in every single one of his photos. Even the ones with Yuri on. And those were 90% of his Instagram. Yuri. Yuri. Yuri.

Otabek inhaled loudly before entering into @yurisangels account. They were now compiling photos from Yuri at The Velvet yesterday and they called on a post for other Yuri’s angels to send their professional photos so they could make and album of Yuri. He was so proud of being the boyfriend of such a beautiful and talented skater, but sometimes he wished he didn’t have that scary fanclub.

Otabek Dmed them.

otabek-altin: I need your help.

yurisangels: [throwing up emojis]

yurisangels: break up with Yuri

otabek-altin: no

They were never ever EVER going to help him. He inhaled one more time. Yuri was worth it.

otabek-altin: please, I beg you.

yurisangels: do you even love Yuri?

otabek-altin: yes, that’s why I’m writing to you

yurisangels: [throwing up emojis]

yurisangels: what do you want?

otabek-altin: a picture from yesterday. I know you were there. I was hugged by a Russian guy. And Yuri thinks I kissed him

otabek-altin: But YOU WERE THERE. You know that I didn’t

yurisangels: [throwing up emojis]

Otabek thought he had failed at his attempt. He tried to call Yuri again but his phone was still off. It was now 5 pm. He was getting more and more antsy.

otabek-altin: please. I haven’t heard from him since this morning. Nor anyone we know. Please.

@yurisangels left him on read but two minutes after replied.

yurisangels: i have a video proving your so-called innocence. What’s in for us?

Otabek felt both relieved but also as if he was being blackmailed.

otabek-altin: what do you want

otabek-altin: ???

yurisangels: proof.

yurisangels: that you love him

yurisangels: [throwing up emojis]

yurisangels: or else

yurisangels: [throwing up emojis]

otabek-altin: I have a proof

yurisangels: [throwing up emojis]

yurisangels: ?????

Otabek considered his odds. Called Yuri again and he didn’t reply. Got up, feeling as stiff as ever. Walked up to his closet. Searched for a tiny black box inside one of his favorite jackets. Opened the box, took a photo and sent it, hoping it wouldn’t backfire.

yurisangels: how do we know you bought that???????????????

Otabek searched in his credit card app and found in the register the payment he made two months ago. He’d saved money for it and was still paying it. That’s why he couldn’t afford a bigger, less shitty, closer to Yuri, place. Took a screenshot and cut his credit card number but not his name nor the cost of the thing so they could know how much his love for Yuri was worth. Or whatever shit they believed.

yurisangels: [throwing up emojis]

yurisangels: you could’ve bought an even more expensive engagement ring.

yurisangels: [throwing up emojis]

yurisangels: we still hate you

yurisangels: [throwing up emojis]

_yurisangels sent you a video_

Fucking finally.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't you love toxic fandoms? HAHAHAHAHA, I'm sure I'm not the first person that has ever thought of some celebrity recurring to the oficial fanclub to organize something. But I felt like I had to include that in this fanfic. I was inspired by the fans who run those... I don't remember the name, but basically they follow a K-Pop celebrity with huge ass professional cameras everywhere and some even say they are the first to know about their whereabouts and current boyfriends/girlfriends even before those tabloids like Dispatch do, but they don't release the info because they respect their artist. I think @yurisangels wanted that power of knowing before anyone else and Otabek also knew. So he gave in in the name of Yuri.
> 
> I mean, to be followed and photographed every second, that's creepy, for sure, but sometimes, I guess, it's also helpful.
> 
> Will @yurisangels respect Otabek's and Yuri's privacy? We'll find out eventually.


	6. the meddling

“Do you think we should…?”

“Meddle? Yes, I do.”

“Viktor!” Yuuri tried to drown his laugh as he was talking to his husband in mumbles and whispers in the kitchen. It was more or less and open kitchen that was separated from the living room by a breakfast island where it had a kitchen sink and a stove. So, as they were washing the dishes from dinner, they could watch Yurio’s blond hair peeking through the couch he was snuggled on. They weren’t being exactly discreet but the large size of the room (after all, Viktor insisted on buying the largest, biggest townhouse) allowed them to talk without being heard that much. And also, after dinner Yuri just crouched into the couch and didn’t say another word, looking almost in some sort of trance.

When Yuri asked them to take him home, they quickly agreed, of course. But after some consideration, the couple decided that it would be best if the younger dinned with them as they figured out by his story of how he got to his place that Yuri hadn’t ate in all day. He didn’t complain, but after the sudden realization that Otabek was moving on (with or without him, even if Yuri told them that he didn’t think the Kazakh would dump him, his attitude later said otherwise) Yuri remained silent and even mournful. He ate but not that much and he just waited till the couple finished eating to crouch again in a lone corner.

“I feel so sorry for him. I mean, look at him. He reminds me of the day his grandfather died”.

“But there, he was snuggled up on Otabek. I think he did cry, but with him, alone. At least that’s the impression I got from the service.”

“Yeah, I got that impression too… But Otabek is not dead. Nor has dumped Yuri.”

“ _Yet._ ”

“Yet?” Yuuri lowered his voice even more. He increased the pressure of the water by opening the faucet to make noise. “Viktor, what do you know?”

“I heard from Mila at the rink today, that yesterday Otabek told them that he was offered to sign on a label as a DJ. She said that Otabek was definitely quitting skating. And before we went home, Mila asked me if we knew about Yuri’s whereabouts, said something that Otabek was looking for him and that he was pretty upset. Maybe he is looking for Yurio to break up with him.”

“Upset? That could mean tons of stuff, Vitya.” Yuuri bit his lower lip, feeling even more sorry for his friend. “But if he did… That would crush Yuri.”  
“I think it would be better if we convince Yuri to stay. Maybe he’s feeling like the end is coming. We could spare him at least one night.”

The couple looked at each other, both thinking what they would want if they knew the other was going to break up with them. But it was something too painful to even talk or think about.

“What if we ask Altin?” By now they both had stopped washing the dishes and were now just staring at each other letting the water run. Viktor raised a brow by the proposal, thinking that it wasn’t that crazy. “Maybe they have some disagreement, maybe if we talk to him, we could help them get through it.”

“But should we trust that Altin boy?” Viktor changed his mind every time Yuuri did. They were about to discuss that further when Viktor’s phone rang up. The Japanese looked at the kitchen clock, it was about 11 pm. Who could be calling?

It was Mila. And she was in tears.

*

Yuri sat on the couch after dinner. He held his phone on his hands playing with the weight of it, staring at the black screen and looking at his reflection every now and then. He repeated the events of the last few days in his head, trying to make them mean something less crushing than the feeling he had that Otabek was drifting away.

And all because Yuri forgot stupid’s Otabek lease expiring.

Except _he didn’t._ But he expected for something to change before he could make his decision.

After all, the Kazakh had been drifting apart. He had seen the dark-haired man daydreaming, looking through windows, doors, staying silent on the rink, unfocused on the practice, on everything for the last few months. He was _longing_ for something (someone?) but Yuri didn’t know what that was. Maybe he _was_ thinking about retiring and that could explain most of it. But _not all_ of it.

Otabek was changing.

So, when the topic of his lease expiring came in as a random topic one morning while having post-sex breakfast, Yuri bit his tongue after he offered Otabek to move in with him. The Kazakh’s face lit up with such joy but that lasted for only a few minutes before Yuri could see him daydreaming again, rumbling through some thoughts he was not allowed to hear. Of course, that hurt Yuri’s ego but he figured he was moody or something. He decided that he was not going to put the topic on the table again, but every now and then Otabek joked about moving in and where would he put his stuff, like testing the waters to see how Yuri would react. Sometimes, when he felt like Otabek was his old self again, he replied joyfully, even hopeful, so he could participate in those daydreams with the Kazakh about a future together. But then, after a day or two he would get moody again, saying that he had to go back “home”. Or he would go DJing and skip practice or had that stupid friend of his calling and pestering him with messages.

But Yuri didn’t say anything about his stupid friend or his hobby. Otabek was the sweetest, kindest person he had ever known but he didn’t have that many friends in Russia. He thought his group of friends (Katsudon, that stupid Viktor, Baba, Sara and the rest) were also his friends but later found out that he was considered a boyfriend, like an external person who could come and go even though Yuri had confessed to all of them in different moments that he would marry Otabek’s ass if even subtly proposed. Maybe his quiet personality didn’t sit well with the club of Russian skaters who were mostly outgoing and more talkative.

But he had seen Otabek being the center of attention and the most talkative of the bunch… In Almaty.

They had visited Otabek’s family, first as friends and later as a couple, a few times and Yuri had met his brothers, sisters and friends to discover that his warm, kind and sweet boyfriend was also a warm, kind, sweet family-person. But of course, even if gregarious, it was difficult to make Otabek like you. Maybe his bad boy persona had something to do with him trying to protect his own feelings. Or was it the other way around? Should Yuri know?

If he could, he would’ve called Otabek’s friends to find out why he was so moody, so weird, so… Not-into-Yuri. Yuri knew he could count on a bunch of people to cry on if he needed to. He was at fucking Yuuri’s and Viktor’s house feeling all miserable. But where did Otabek went to when he wanted to cry? Yuri didn’t know nor had he seen his boyfriend (if he could still call him that) like that yet. And couldn’t count on that asshole of Evgeny or whatever his name to tell him.

Yuri looked at his phone, pitch black. His miserable reflection staring miserably at him. He turned his phone off after he escaped the Kazakh’s room. At first, he wanted to make it impossible for Otabek to communicate with him. But an hour or so later, after he got to the Katsuki-Nikiforov’s house, he was afraid that Otabek hadn’t texted nor called him _at all_. And he got so afraid that he waited for hours till the marriage came back home, not ready to face the fact that maybe, probably, Otabek was going to breakup with him.

*

“Yuri” He realized Viktor was calling his name only when he stood in front of him. He looked… visibly upset. Katsuki was by his side but far away talking on the phone with the most worried look ever.

“Did you reject Otabek’s marriage proposal?”

“What the fuck are you fucking talking about?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> O:
> 
> Marriage? But he is only 22!  
> Otabek, what have you done?
> 
> There is so much gossip and so much meddling in this kind of scenario. I think specially the Katsuki-Nikiforov marriage THRIVE on gossip. Of course they are worried about Yuri, but I think in secret they love it. Sara and Mila couldn't care less about gossip but they do share the things they hear.
> 
> What do you think? Is it good to let your friends meddle in your love life?
> 
> I think Otabek is suffering because he doesn't have a solid support network like Yuri does :( having a boyfriend/girlfriend is great but one should always have /good/friends by your side, no matter if you are in a relationship or not.


	7. #WhereIsYuriPlisetsky

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a double update because the power went out in my house yesterday and all I had was this laptop with a battery fully charged and nothing else to do. I don't know when I'm going to update again (I'm sure it'll be all good by Monday, but I am eager to write the rest of the chapters), so I hope you enjoy.

Long before Viktor stood in front of him, Yuri came to a resolution that would protect him and his feelings. But hearing Nikiforov’s question totally threw him off.

“Is this… a pregnancy thing, Yurio?”

Yuri looked at Viktor like he couldn’t believe his question: “I am a man. I can’t get pregnant and you know it. And no, my boyfriend doesn’t even love me! How do you expect that he wants to marry me?”

_Fuck._

Yuri got up fast and left Yuuri and Viktor on the living room to go lock himself at whatever room he could find available. He was ok. He _was_ ok. But the angry and bitter words left his mouth before he could even think about them. And now he was crying _again_ as he had said out loud what he had been thinking for a couple of months but never had the guts to say. It hurt so much to admit that the man he loved was playing some kind of sick game, being hot and cold with him, saying that he loved him and then becoming distant and lying. Where was his sweet Otabek who was always the first to welcome him at the rink, who practiced his jumps with him, who said that he would still love him in the morning? Where was he?

Because to Yuri, if he recalled the past two months, it seemed like Otabek woke up one day and found out that he didn’t love the blond anymore. He just didn’t have the nerves to tell him.

*

When Viktor picked up his phone, he got really surprised to hear Mila crying like that.

“Hey, Mila, calm down, okay? Everything is alright, I’m here.” Viktor mouthed to Yuuri: “She is crying” And he read from the lips of his husband: “But why?”. Viktor shrugged, as he tried to calm down Mila who couldn’t stop sobbing. Viktor signaled Yuri to the ceiling, meaning that he was going upstairs to take the call. And Yuuri, thinking that it could have something to do with Yurio, nodded and signaled him that he would join him soon.

“Yurio? Viktor and I are going to take a call upstairs, okay?”

But Yuri didn’t answer. By his stillness, the Japanese man thought that maybe he had fallen asleep on the couch. When Yuuri got to the master bedroom he saw Viktor with a worried face, trying to understand Mila, who was now on speaker.

“Mila, I can’t understand you like that. What’s wrong?”

Then, they heard a thump and some mumbles and the crying got far away. Someone else picked the phone.

“Hey, this is Sara. Do you know where the fuck is Yuri Plisetsky?”

“He is here, at our home. Why?”

“ _They_ are harassing Mila asking where he is. _They_ are harassing me and I’m surprised you haven’t noticed as I’m sure _they_ are asking to everyone who is related to him somehow, where the fuck that punk is.”

“Who are _they_ , Sara?”

“Yuri’s Angels”

Then, another phone rang. It was Pichit for Yuuri. Yuuri answered right away.

“Is Plisetsky ok? What is happening, Yuuri?”

“I don’t know, Pichit, I don’t know”.

*

Each call took like fifteen minutes as Sara had some information and Pichit other. Apparently, Mila had been crying out of worry because, at the request of Otabek, she tried to call Yuri around noon and he didn’t answer _“And he never, ever, EVER, turns off his phone.”_ They heard Mila sob far away. As Mila was the one that said to Otabek that he could take Yuri home the night before, she was afraid something had happened to him because of whatever incident he had with the Kazakh. _“What if he raped Yuri? What if I let him go all drunk and vulnerable with a monster?_ ” Viktor assured Sara and Mila that _that_ didn’t happen. At least that they knew.

The hours passed and around 9 she started getting tons and tons of messages from strangers at all of her SNS with the same message: “Where is Yuri Plisetsky?” So of course, after hours of remorse, she cracked and was about to report him missing until Sara convinced her to call Yuuri and Viktor (as they were also close to Yuri) before doing anything else like getting the police all meddled in.

_“Is he safe?”_

“Yeah, he is safe. He’s just… I guess, sad? He said that he saw Otabek kissing his friend Evgeny at that bar but he didn’t say anything more.”

Mila and Sara replied confused that they were with Yuri all night and neither of them saw Otabek cheating. On the contraire, they believed the Kazakh had gotten out early to look out for him.

Pichit had a different story. He did receive _some_ messages _(“like six or five, but it was super random_ ”) but he got interested as the fan accounts he followed that posted fancams of him started posting Instagram Stories saying that Plisetsky was missing in support of Yuri’s fandom. He checked account after account but no one knew anything, and, if someone knew, they asked things like “are they married yet? I saw the ring and its gorgeous” which wasn’t helpful at all. He looked through Yuri’s fanbase on Instagram and found @yurisangels, self-proclaimed official fanclub of Yuri Plisetsky, but they hadn’t posted anything even remotely close to Yuri being missing nor getting married. But what was interesting is that the comments on their last post -asking for pictures of Yuri at The Velvet- were full of gossip and everyone was asking where Yuri was. As he didn’t found useful information on Instagram, Pichit went to Twitter where he typed #WhereIsYuriPlisetsky (what most of the fans were commenting) and found a thread in which a user explained that all the ruckus was caused by someone in @yurisangels who shared two screenshots of the Kakao group chat of the admins of said fanclub. In the first screenshot, Angel1 said that Otabek had reached to them and asked for a certain video with certain characteristics. Then, there was another screenshot of Angel1 sharing a photo of an engagement ring and what appeared to be a screenshot of Otabek’s bank app with the receipt for said ring. Of course, it was all sketchy as they shared screenshots of a groupchat and no one could really tell if that was truly Otabek’s or not, and they didn’t say what kind of video he requested. BUT apparently, the person who leaked the screenshots via tweet said that Otabek had reached to them because Yuri was missing and he “bought” the mysterious video sharing the photo of the ring. AND Yuri hadn’t reply to any messaged or liked anything since the tweet/thread/photo became viral, so that got the fans worried and caused them to start asking to his close friends where he was. But then again, it was all sketchy because the tweet and the account of the person who leaked the info were now deleted. So, they had the screenshot of the screenshot of the screenshot as a proof. Or something like that.

“Pichit, that’s ridiculous.”

“ _I don’t know, Yuuri, I just told you what I found. I’m surprised you didn’t notice all the noise on the SNSs.”_

“We got all busy with Yurio. He looks really depressed; he thinks Otabek is cheating.”

“ _And what are you going to do? I can post a Story saying that Yuri is safe. That should stop the antsy fans. But what if Otabek proposed and got turned down after Yuri found out he was cheating?”_

Yuuri could sense that Pichit was thrilled with the drama, but he did give them helpful information. “Maybe we should let it die on its own. We are going to talk to Yurio first to see what he thinks and then we’ll figure out what to do.”

*

They took turns to explain what they found out at their phone calls and agreed to talk to Yurio first.

“What should we do, Vitya? Maybe if we listened to Otabek’s side of the story we could understand more of it…”

But Viktor, for the first time in their marriage, disagreed with Yuuri in another topic that wasn’t who loved who the most. “If Yurio says that he saw Otabek cheating, our duty as his friends is to believe him.”

*

As they were walking down the stairs, Yuuri was distracted looking through his notifications and he was surprised at how persistent Yuri’s fans where. He got asked in all of his Instagram's and Facebook's photos where Yuri was. He was also seriously tagged in the same yellow-ish picture over and over again, but he didn’t had time to look at that. Instead, there was a message that caught his attention.

Otabek Altin [5 hours ago]: _Please, if you know anything about Yura, let me know. I just want to make sure he is ok._

Yuuri agreed with Viktor when he said that they should only believe in Yurio’s words, but he didn’t peg Otabek as someone who would or could hurt Yuri on purpose. Hadn’t he crossed the whole town in the middle of a storm just to confess? Something wasn’t right.

He texted the Kazakh back: _He is ok._

To which Otabek replied by calling him immediately.

Yuuri answered just before his husband woke up the blond, pulling himself apart so neither of them could hear the other.

“H-Hello?”

_“IsYuraok?”_ It was hard to understand what the other man was saying as Yuuri believed his voice cracked and sounded raspy from… crying?

“Hey, Altin…” The Japanese tried to put the most cheerful-ish, everything-is-not-burning-down kind of tone but he was sure he was failing at that. “Yuri is fine, he’s just upset, but I think-” And then he stopped talking as he heard the blond raise his voice.

_And no, my boyfriend doesn’t even love me! How do you expect that he wants to marry me?_

The dead silence on the other side of the line made him believe that Otabek definitely heard that.

“ _Please”_ He heard the Kazakh stop, probably to keep his voice from cracking. _“Hear me out. I have a video. I haven’t kissed anyone but Yura since we got together. I don’t know what he saw, but I have proof that it is all a misunderstanding.”_ Yuuri couldn’t help but to feel bad for the Otabek that he knew, all cold and serious, that now sounded so vulnerable and so, _so sorry_ over a kiss that didn’t even happened (if Otabek’s story was true). Katsuki looked at Yurio, who ran away trying to contain his angry tears and was even more miserable than when his grandfather died. No, this was something else.

“I’ll see what I can do”. And before committing to anything, Yuuri hung up.


	8. The one where Yuri and Otabek break up

Yuri slept at the Katsuki-Nikiforov’s house. After feeling that he had run out of tears, he got out of the closet he locked himself in (twice in the same day, that was a record) and, without saying anything, he lay down on the couch, decided to sleep there. Yuuri and Viktor didn’t try to pry him out of his hideout, or even talk to him as he got out, as they understood he was going through a rough moment. With Yuri one had to know when to push and when to pull. Yuri would express his feelings in whichever tone he decided it was most appropriate to, and, given time, he would calm down and talk. He wasn’t the same 15-year-old who got angry at everything. Now he was _more_ level-headed. All they had to do was wait until Yuri decided to reach out. In the meantime, they gave him company.

The morning after neither of them said anything about Otabek while they were having breakfast. But the couple did ask Yuri about Potya as she had been alone all day on Yuri’s house. He replied that if either of them borrowed him their phone, he could call Mila and she could go to his house and feed his cat.

“Can you stay with me today?” It was such a beautiful Sunday to spend it alone and miserable while gathering the strength to break up with his boyfriend. He had rather spent it with friends instead of just alone.

“Sure.” Yuuri replied looking nervously at Viktor who just nodded.

Normally in the Katsuki-Nikiforov household, Sunday plans were mostly having breakfast in bed and lots of lazy sex but today that would be different. The three of them stayed home, watched some movies, ordered tons of ice cream and pirozhkis, and, at noon Mila, Sara, Georgi and his other friends came to visit him. Mila specially hugged him tightly as soon as she saw him but didn’t mention Otabek nor anything related to that matter. At his request, she handed the blonde a bag with clothes and a pair of shoes she took from his home so he could change into something decent and not Makachin-themed. When he did, he stared at his reflection in the mirror. A black t-shirt Otabek gave him at his birthday, a leopard-printed denim jacket he bought while shopping with Otabek, black skinny pants Otabek had took off of him surely more than once. And a pair of red boots. He liked the combination Mila had chosen for him, but he found funny that there were major decisions in his life he felt somebody else was taking for him, even if he was the one who was pulling the trigger.

They were all on the living room chatting, laughing and basically having a blast and, while Yuri appreciated it, he wasn’t having that much fun. When the blond saw Yuuri getting up from Viktor’s lap and going to the kitchen, he followed him.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

Yuri stayed silent for a minute. The Japanese man looked at him and was about to open his mouth when Yuri spoke first.

“Do you have Otabek’s phone number? I want to call him.”

“Are you sure?”

Yuri just nodded. Katsuki gave Yuri one last look before hugging him tight for a second and then told him to stay put as he left his phone with his husband. The Japanese walked away and Yuri diverted his gaze as he didn’t want to see the look that Viktor would surely give him. He didn’t want anyone’s pity. On his way to Viktor, Yuuri took his phone out of his pocket to delete his call’s history. When he got to his husband, he just kissed him more deeply that one would normally do in a casual gathering. That earned Yuuri the whistles and the light complaints from their friends who took the chance to tease him a little as they would normally do to the couples who wanted to take the PDA to the next step. Yuuri’s ears got visibly red when he got back to the blond, but he didn’t care. His friend’s suffering about his other half was starting to get to him.

He handed Yuri his phone and got surprised when Yuri stayed with him. The Japanese thought that his friend would like to go to somewhere more private to talk but didn’t. Instead, he laid his head on Katsuki’s shoulder breathing in and out with his eyes closed. Maybe Yuri wanted the support of a friend.

When Yuri finally called, the Kazakh picked up by the second ring.

*

It all happened quickly. They agreed to meet on the front of Yuuri’s and Viktor’s house and, when Otabek arrived, he texted Yuri through Yuuri’s cellphone. The Kazakh didn’t know what to expect as the blond sounded stoic through the phone.

When he got the text, Yuri casually said to his friends that he was going out for a bit to buy something at the store, but everyone knew that was bullshit as Yuuri and Viktor lived in the most gentrified part of St. Petersburg where there were no convenience stores around. No one said anything, but they all _knew_. When they heard the door close, they waited for a few seconds before gathering at the front windows, badly hidden behind the curtains, to see a sad but decided Yuri face a soon hopeless Otabek.

His friends didn’t know what they talked about but they appeared to have fought or discussed for a bit after Yuri expressed his feelings rather upset. That didn’t take long as they parted ways shortly after Otabek tried to give Yuri his hand and Yuri pushed it away. At least, Katsuki got disappointed as he though Otabek would fight a little bit more, but he had a look on his face, the look of a man who _understood_ he had done something wrong. What Yuri said and what Otabek realized to not insist anymore was something only both of them knew.

When Yuri entered the house again, he just announced that it was over before sitting on the couch looking as miserable as ever. His friends pretended nothing happened, that they hadn’t seen how the youngest of the group broke up with his ultimate crush, his true love, the man whose ass he would marry if given the opportunity. But they pampered him with hugs, small talk and pirozhki for the rest of the afternoon. It was too early or too late to talk.

At night he finally went home and found Potya waiting for him at the entrance. He played with her for a bit before taking a look to every space in his now too big house. Every corner, every nook, every piece of furniture and decoration had been touched by Otabek in some way. His body felt hot as Otabek had carved his way under every inch of his skin through kisses and caresses that now burned with sadness.

He considered to turn on his cellphone but he wasn’t ready to find out if the Kazakh had tried to contact him as he assured him. He could deal with so much pain in a day. Yuri went to sleep early, as he was absolutely tired after a horrible weekend, but still failed to wake up in time for his training the morning after. He didn’t want to go, because he was going to see the Kazakh there, but the nationals, the Grand Prix and all of his future, with or without the Otabek, were waiting for him just around the corner.

To Yuri’s luck, his now ex-boyfriend wasn’t there when he got to the rink. Viktor and Mila, the ones he would normally see at his practice, were acting like they usually did but Yakov seemed notoriously quiet through all the session even if Yuri was late and failed, like last week, at every turn, every spin, every jump, every lapse. At the end of the day, Yakov gathered all of his skaters to give an announcement:

_Otabek Altin retired from figure skating and got back to Almaty._

Yuri was sure Yakov said more as the announcement was made to redo the skater’s schedules as there were now open spaces in the training sessions. But Yuri couldn’t take it. He got off the ice, took off his skates and ran to his locker. Took his bag. Found his phone. Turned it on.

But it was already too late.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, in the tags I mentioned that this was an angsty story. There is your angst.  
> Did you see that coming?
> 
> Don't cry, they'll get back together... Or will they? 
> 
> O:
> 
> This was a rather short chapter which could've been fused with the other one, but one should honor a breakup by giving it it's own chapter.


	9. Longing (Interlude)

Interlude

[Caption taken from @DJBeksFC's Instagram post: photo no. 1 to the left, row no.1]

_Hello, everyone! This is DJBeksFC. As some of you know, our @otabek-altin has retired from his figure skating career and got back to his hometown, Almaty, in Kazakhstan. With that news it has also been confirmed that he is not signing with_ Halo _, the Russian producer Sátina’s label. To this day (31 of October) his future plans are unknown. Though it saddens us that there are some rumors about him quitting his DJ career altogether, it is our duty to wish him the best of luck on the path he considers suits him the most._

_Even if this fan account didn’t followed his career as a professional skater, it is impossible to deny that what he loved the most were, somehow, interconnected. He came to Russia 3 years ago to train for a passion that took most of his formative years and, in his path to greatness, developed even more another passion that already had his heart as he started his DJ career, mixing and composing, back in Almaty._

_We are glad that you found in our beautiful land the time and place to do and love that which you cherished the most. As a parting and birthday gift we have collected some photos from our personal collection so that you can remember what life was like with you here in Russia. We hope that you treasure your time in St. Petersburg as much as we did._

The first row of posts on @DJBeksFC Instagram all together said R E S T in black letters with a white background and the same farewell caption. If one clicked each post separately, one would find that they were a collection of candid photos of Otabek in different clubs or, at least, at nighttime on the street. In each photo he looked sincerely happy. He was either on the stage DJing and looking to the public, concentrated on his music or looking at a young blond man. He was tagged in all of the photos, as well as Yuri Plisetsky, who appeared in most of them.

The second row of posts were a panoramic cut off in three parts of the front of a club at night. The photos looked mostly yellowish-brownish because of the orange street lights. 

The first post to the left was of a young blond man sitting on the sidewalk with two girls standing and smoking by his side. The second photo, in the middle, was of a crowd chatting and talking outside the front doors of what one could say, if they knew St. Petersburg well, was The Velvet. The third and last photo of the row was of a tall dark-haired man in a leather jacket and white t-shirt looking to his left. If one clicked to each post of the second row, one would discover that they were in fact a collection of three photos. The other two were as it follows:

 **On the first post** , the second photo remained the same, but the girls looked at their right. On the third photo, the girls appeared to be looking at the dark-haired man, who was kneeling beside the blond.

Yuri Plisetsky and Otabek Altin were tagged.

**On the second post,** the second photo remained the same, but there was a shadow of a man passing by.

The third photo was the same as the first photo.

Otabek Altin was tagged.

**On the third post** , one could see the growth of the smile on the dark-haired man’s face at the realization of something/someone being there.

Yuri Plisetsky and Otabek Altin were tagged.

All three posts on the second row had the same caption:

**L O V E P R E V A I L S**

On the third row the posts from the sides consisted on white squares while the post on the center was actually a video of said dark-man carrying the blond, who had his arms around the man’s shoulders. The video lasted only for a few seconds, but one could see how the dark-haired man smiled fondly when looking at the blond just before rubbing his cheek on the other’s hair tenderly.

Yuri Plisetsky and Otabek Altin were tagged.

There was no caption.

*

**Longing**

Yuri had seen Otabek staring at him way too many times. Not staring but _staring_. He was trying to decide if he liked that type of attention or not. He did two or three lapses through the ice before reaching to Mila. The girl was trying to tie his hair up, but in the process, she dropped her scrunchie. Yuri looked over his shoulder and Otabek had his gaze up on him, not even trying to conceal it anymore. The Kazakh was leaning on the railing of the ice rink while taking a break. He looked _hungry_.

Yuri smiled at him and bend to grab Mila’s hair band.

That would do the job.

Back at Yuri’s home, the Kazakh didn’t even wait as he already had Yuri against the door, with the blond’s legs surrounding his waist and kissing every inch of him.

“I missed you so much” He whispered to Yuri’s ear while dry humping his ass. Yuri would’ve replied if Otabek’s kisses and bites in his neck hadn’t stolen his breath. Yuri did his thing, trying to remove Otabek’s shirt as he was getting more and more antsy. The need to have Otabek inside him was almost unbearable.

“How was the two-week vacation with your family?” Yuri asked as he got the Kazakh half naked and enjoyed the view of his toned body. “Boring.” He replied quickly even if Yuri knew that wasn’t true. “Why do still have your clothes on, Yura?” He mumbled against his neck while his hands got under the blond’s shirt. “Hey, be careful” he tried to sound serious and not moan but it was getting hard as the Kazakh took his sweet time kissing every part of his neck. “Don’t leave marks.”

“Why? If the ones I left you already faded, you’ll need new ones”

Yuri smiled to himself. Otabek was always so needy. “You can leave marks later and fuck me now”. Otabek stopped to look at Yuri and smile.

“I’ll take that”. He put Yuri on the floor and took his hand to take him to his room, totally convinced by the blond’s arguments. The house was quite big so he was still getting used to the rooms and how to get to where, but oh, the road to Yuri’s room, that he had memorized.

“Undress.” He said as he got to Yuri’s night stand to take out a bottle of lube. Yuri was still discovering how many kinky sides the Kazakh had and this was one that gave him shivers. He kneeled on the bed and considered his options. Shirt or jeans first? But as he stopped for even a second to think, he already had his ring mate hugging him from behind, kissing him again on the neck, cheeks, on his shoulders as he stretched the fabric of his clothes. The Kazakh’s hands were quick as he could remove his belt and unbutton his jeans with his eyes closed. He got them down enough to show Yuri’s underwear and, over the fabric, Otabek started to rub his already hard cock. “Did you miss me?” The elder whispered to his ear as he put his other hand on Yuri’s lips, which he immediately opened to suck on his fingers. Fuck. Maybe the needy was him after all.

When Yuri got his fingers wet enough, Otabek changed hands and snuck that one under Yuri’s underwear so he could masturbate him. Yuri tried his best not to but he shivered and let out a moan. He bit his lower lip moving his head slightly so Otabek could see him while moving his hips just enough to rub his ass on the man’s pelvis as a revenge.

“I don’t know. Did you?”

Otabek laughed a little to himself, taking a slight pause to remove Yuri’s shirt, caressing his torso in the process. He was quick to lower his pants and getting his dick out so he could, after lowering the blond’s underwear too, rub it directly between his ass’ cheeks.

“I think I did. I died a little with the pictures you sent me.” His voice was getting lower and lower. He grabbed the blond by his jaw pulling him so they could kiss while he grabbed the lube to wet his hand even more. He inserted a finger inside Yuri’s and felt him quench a little before relaxing at the insistence of Otabek’s wet kiss.

“Are you ok?” Otabek stopped for a moment to check on him. Yuri just nodded.

They kept on kissing while the Kazakh held him close with his free hand around the Russian’s waist. He inserted a second finger, checked on him, kept on kissing. And then, when he felt the other boy was loose enough, slowly, inserted a third. By that Yuri couldn’t keep it as he broke the kiss to moan. He put one of his hands against Otabek’s nape while the other held on tight to his arm.

“Touch me, Beka.”

“Did you miss me, Yura?” He insisted, feeling Yuri’s hole tightening around his fingers and imagining how delightful that would feel around his dick. Yuri rolled his eyes, getting feisty at not getting what he wanted.

“So, what if I did?” He replied in almost a purr.

“If you did, I would fuck you right now, to make you un-miss me.”

“You’ll have to fuck me a lot then”

It took all of Otabek’s willpower to not change his hand for his penis as he loved when the blond spoke like that. Just to make him “suffer” as he was, he inserted his fingers even more deeply, as he already knew he loved that.

“I’m good now. Fuck, Beka, just fuck me already” Yuri said after a long moan.

Otabek complied instantly, as he removed his hand to put on lube on his dick and insert himself slowly on Yuri’s hole. He wanted so bad to just fuck him senseless but he was still tight, so he used his hand to caress the blond’s testicles and cock until it was him who was moving against Otabek.

They increased the rhythm now both moving as they could. Otabek opened Yuri’s legs even more and made him lean into the headboard so he could grab his ass and drill him harder, and harder and harder and harder. Otabek was as vocal in his dirty talk as in bed, because he kept growling against his skin out of pleasure. Sometimes he changed his pace for depth and inserted himself so deep, Yuri could feel his orgasm pilling up. In response, Yuri clenched his muscles making the other man shiver so much out of pleasure that he could feel it. “Fuck, Yura. I could fuck you forever”.

“More, Beka, I want more.”

The position was already uncomfortable as Otabek still had his pants on, only halfway down. But he didn’t have the time nor the patience to focus on any other thing that fucking Yuri. So, without getting apart, they got out of the bed and Otabek pilled some pillows so the blond could lay upside down with his hips high enough for him to fuck him even deeper.

The new position was so good that the thrusts increased rapidly. The only thing Yuri knew besides the moans and the groans, and Otabek grabbing his hair and his ass and every inch of his skin, was that he had all of the Kazakh’s dick, _all of it_ , inside him furiously fucking him.

He was so, so, so close, he felt his breath uneven, couldn’t even moan properly and he felt the Kazakh as close as he was. The Kazakh fastened his pace even more and Yuri felt like he was about to come until-

Yuri opened his eyes. He woke up hard, breathless and also, alone.

_Fuck._

Was it unethical or unmoral to masturbate thinking about your ex?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If Naruto can have filler episodes, so can I.
> 
> Thanks for asking, the power at my house got restored so I charged my computer and wrote this. 
> 
> Don't judge me for updating fast, I want to know what's going to happen lol.


	10. Oblivion

Viktor got early to the rink. Even outside one could hear a slow and sorrowful tango. Strong cello strings, the cry of a violin and a piano accompanying as the bass. The sound was engulfing once you entered the building where it sounded even sadder.

And there, alone in the middle of the rink, Yuri was spinning, doing lapses with eyes closed, sometimes trying to jump. As the music got sadder and the violin intensified its cry, Yuri opened his legs in an Ina Bauer, gaining speed before doing a triple axel and slowing down with a skid spiral. Always in time for the music. Yuri gave little jumps feeling the sounds here and there, mostly doing lapses around the rink, moving his hands in what he felt could be a choreography. Spinning and trying some footwork. Jumping for imperfect quads. But feeling it. Feeling every note of it.

When the music started to fade, Yuri ended his performance doing a Biellmann.

It looked like a free skate to Viktor. Imperfect, raw, where the spin sequences were the main focus, not the jumps.

The music started again, apparently it was on repeat. Viktor spotted Yuri’s phone connected to the speakers and put it on pause. Yuri didn’t mind, as he was now sitting on the ice, trying to catch his breath. One could only imagine how many times Yuri had skated to the same piece for him to be that tired.

Viktor was unimpressed. He leaned on the railing of the rink waiting for the blond to raise his head to talk. He had a feeling of where this conversation will be going.

“I could do a double sequence of a quad salchow a triple axel and then, the spin-”

“For next season? Sure. Good luck with that.”

“For the Grand Prix, Viktor.”

Viktor raised his brow.

“I need this.”

Yuri skated to Viktor’s side looking like he was about to faint. The blond had asked him to go early to the rink as he wanted to show him something, but never said what it was. His mind was already set on changing his free skate only two weeks before the Grand Prix’s qualifying rounds started. Viktor could understand Yuri feeling low as his ex-boyfriend’s birthday was approaching (they all knew because the qualifying rounds were always around October-November and Otabek’s birthday was the 31. Even in the middle of stress, competitions, and long distance, Yuri insisted on doing something to celebrate the Kazakh’s birthday every year) but this was ridiculous.

“We can modify the choreography from my free skate for this. I already know what I want.”

_You want your boyfriend back_ , Viktor thought.

“Yurio…” Viktor took a moment to choose the right words as he understood the stubbornness, the drive and the power of doing something for love. Go all the way across the world for the person he loved? Quit your skating career? Take the most impulsive decisions? Been there and done that. But Viktor already had his fair share of skating by then, he didn’t have anything to lose. Whereas one could see the fire of the passion for skating on Yuri’s soldier eyes burning even more every day. Because of that, every competition that Yuri lost was a regret and, considering what he wanted to do, changing his free skate at the last minute could not only mean that he would lose, but also, that he could injure himself and end his skating career early and badly. “I’m not saying that you can’t, but you could lose the podium. To JJ. Again.” He only threw the name on the conversation because he knew how much the blond hated him, but that could give him a sense of reality. “This isn’t the moment to take things lightly.”

“I don’t care!” Yuri raised his voice, but seeing his exasperation was going up, he took his phone and pressed play to the same piece he was skating before. He did a few lapses around the rink, trying to concentrate on the music, until he _felt_ it. What he was trying to convey was way too beautiful for the stiffness of the requirements of a free skate. This time, Yuri performed it with all the jumps. One salchow quad, various triples that looked like they wanted to be quads. But the spins, the footwork, the little jumps were the most mesmerizing part.

Viktor stood there and saw him silently until the music faded again. Like the first time, Yuri ended breathless but in some way with contentment.

“Will you help me?” Yuri’s gaze was threatening, his voice, decided.

“I will.”

*

Only two months had passed since Otabek returned to Kazakhstan. Yuri got the gold at the nationals, won the Rostelecom Cup and the Internationaux de France without flinching, but only because since then, he had been using every minute of his day to train. He went for a run at morning and down, took 3 hours of ballet in the morning and between 5 or 6 of skating in the afternoon. _If_ he took Sundays off was to practice his choreography on his own off-ice. But after he qualified for the Grand Prix Final, Yuri’s mind was even more focused on his exhibition dance than his short and long program.

Viktor had convinced him to skate to the piece he wanted (a tango, _Oblivion_ , by the Argentinian composer, Astor Piazzolla) but for his exhibition. It took a while but with the help of Yakov, Mila, the calculation of an approximate GOE he could get for every element in the piece, but more with the right words from Viktor, Yuri gave in:

_“Yurio, if you skate this as your free skate and fail, you could even miss the Grand Prix Final. But if you concentrate on the programs we already have and you get the gold, you could skate this as the final exhibition performance where_ **everyone** _could see it.”_

Viktor couldn’t emphasize that _everyone_ even more.

And that was what kept Yuri going from the insanity that it was to spend most of his days stalking the man he lost. After he went away, it took Yuri some days to read every text and hear every voice mail Otabek had sent him the days where he had his phone off. He looked at every comment, every DM and every photo he was tagged on the unfathomable #WhereIsYuriPlisetsky day but also read every conspiration theory around Otabek’s destiny as a DJ: him being offered to sign on a famous label and that having to do with him retiring from the skating world and even how it could connect with the engagement ring theory. His fans had WAY too much free time as some of the comments and things that he read were so far away from the truth, but then, who knew? Apparently, Yuri didn’t as most of the people on the internet were already aware of so many things about Otabek that he didn’t know.

What broke his heart to a million of pieces was that he got tagged the day before he broke up with Otabek on a post of the DJ-Otabek fan account. There were pictures of him outside The Velvet and a video. Yuri didn’t remember those moments -he was too wasted by the time he saw Otabek seemingly kissing Evgeny-, but what caught his attention was the few seconds of him being carried that day by the Kazakh, where the dark-haired man looked at him so lovingly and tenderly before rubbing his cheek on his hair. That hurt more than when @yurisangels sent him the screenshots of a conversation they had through DMs with Otabek, a few days after they broke up. He recognized Otabek’s room from the ring photo. But none of that made sense to him.

Otabek could buy as many rings as he wanted. Could _say_ that he loved him the most. But if Yuri didn’t _feel it_ because of his erratic behavior, would it matter? But then there was that stupid video of Otabek looking at him like he was the most perfect thing in the world. And that shattered Yuri to pieces.

So, when he stumbled one free Sunday with _Oblivion_ it clicked with him. It was a piece about nostalgia, longing, yearning, pining for the past. And while skating to it, Yuri wondered if he had done wrong by breaking up with him. He knew he deserved to be fully loved _all the time_ , not sometimes, not to be left wondering every now and then what his boyfriend was thinking, where his boyfriend’s heart was. But somehow, he also felt like he should’ve listened to Otabek when he tried to explain himself that cold September afternoon when they broke up.

Now all he had were memories that appeared to be twisted from this present perspective. Was their relationship doomed from the beginning? Or could they have overcome that problem together? What was happening on Otabek’s mind? It certainly didn’t help to his self-mental torture (because he was a piece of shit who stalked the man every free second he had) the recent photos of the Kazakh he was tagged in ( _thank you, Instagram for destroying mental health_ ). Photos of him in Almaty, on the mountains, on the beach, on his house, on his room, on a party, smoking, staring, laughing, thinking, alone, with friends, with family, with girls, with boys, with a dog, kissing other people, being kissed, and Yuri’s favorite, making out while drunk with a boy or a girl at a party. Apparently Otabek’s family and friends missed him a lot because most of the pictures Yuri saw were from them. Otabek looked for the most part _happy_.

He felt a tap on his shoulder which returned him back to the reality, away from the dreamland in his head where he rumbled over and over again the same thoughts about the Kazakh. Where time was frozen while his life moved on without him.

“It’s almost your turn. Are you ready?”

In that moment, Yuri became aware of his surroundings. He was at Moscow, where the Grand Prix Final was held this year. He saw Viktor with a half-smile and Yakov too. He could hear the other skaters chatter in the waiting room and feel the itchiness caused by his body suit full of gold sequins. He looked at the screen in front of him, realizing there has been a change at the scores after the last male single skated. Some bastard wanted to rob him his first place.

He couldn’t keep up like that.

“I’m going full quads”. He announced to his choreographer and coach as he stood up. He didn’t ask. He didn’t stutter. He didn’t care. Everything moved in slow motion for him as he reached for the ice and heard his name being called as he was presented. Did a few lapses, waiting to hear a “ _Yuri, davai!_ ” that was never pronounced. Breath in, breath out. Got to the center of the rink. Closed his eyes, raised his hand for his opening move. The music about to start.

_I’m going to get the gold and then some answers from that fucker._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel so stupid updating every day lol, do you even like this fic? The 'rona in my city is thriving and I'm working from home, so of course I have some free time. BUT STILL. I feel like I'm talking to the wall and the people that click on this fic everyday stop reading it after the first chapter or something.
> 
> I remember when Yuuri On Ice was released (2016) I saw a video of a skater who said that what they performed on the show was so unrealistic. Most of them did a combination of jumps and spins and whatnot that a professional skater wouldn't/couldn't do even on International competitions.
> 
> But I researched about the GPF and skaters in general and holy fucking shit. Alexandra Trusova doing powerful quads being a baby (not true) and Nathan Chen basically doing (almost) every one of his jumps quads for his free skate last year at the GPF surprised me a lot. In the last few years Nathan (21) has replaced Yuzuru Hanyu (25) as the number one. So that made me think (also by what Plushenko has said on some interviews) that skaters now are being faster at getting better (?) every year, and that is so easy to be left out after your mid-20s (but not impossible). Of course I hope that's not the general rule.  
> But for the girls most of the time it is >:-( and that saddens me a little much.
> 
> The ptsd of giving all of your child and adolescent life to a sport just to be displaced by the time you are 26-ish is real (I believe).
> 
> ALSO, THE TIMELINE, BECAUSE THIS SHIT IS GETTING MESSY:  
> -Yuri broke up with Beka at the end of September.  
> -Mid-October Yuri found Oblivion and presented it to Viktor.  
> -The 31 of October DJBeksFC posted his gift for Otabek on Insta, but the photos of them at The Velvet were published in September, just a day before otayuri broke up.  
> -The qualificatory rounds for the Grand Prix were held the last week of October and first weeks of November.  
> -The Grand Prix is held at the beginning of December.
> 
> (If you are going to listen to Oblivion, which I recommend you to, look for the Munich Piano Trio version. 10/10 angst, sadness and sorrow guaranteed)
> 
> Slut-chan out.


	11. Almaty- my first love

Yuri finished both of his programs with the biggest grin on his face. Fuck, he loved skating a lot. As a last-minute resource, he decided to add two sequences for his short program, one of a quad salchow with a triple axel, and a quad toeloop, euler and then a triple salchow, both at the second half of it. For his free skate he landed a quad axel cleanly, breaking a world record. Those were jumps he had only done in practice but knew they weren’t competition-ready. And, even if it was a risky move, he _felt_ he could do it. So, he did.

Viktor and Yakov accompanied Yuri in the kiss and cry where he hugged a teddy bear someone from the public threw at the rink while waiting for the results. Normally they threw cat plushies, but he grabbed the bear. He was the second to last to participate at the free skate and he had at least one place in the podium if he had done his calculations right. All he could wait for was to not be outpointed by the last skater.

And he wasn’t. Fuck, did he love skating.

When he stood up in the podium holding his gold metal, he was happy but rather kept thinking about the past. By the second day of the competition he was surprised he didn’t saw JJ there. But when he asked to Viktor, he said the Canadian lost the qualificator rounds to a young man barely two years younger than Yuri. He felt sort of lonely as the only faces he recognized while on the podium where of his coach and choreographer. None of his other former-skaters friends could be there as they had “normal” jobs now and couldn’t keep up with the travels of a figure skater (but they took the time to call him before and after the competition to cheer and congratulate him). Not even fucking Katsuki could make it as he was in charge for the winter festival of his dance school.

The people he was competing against now were men his age or even younger. And maybe soon, he would be the oldest of the bunch. He couldn’t relate to any of them as he was so focused on overriding his older rivals that he lost touch with the people who already looked at him as _the_ oldest rival. The blond slowly realized that old were the days of the dinosaurs of skating he grew with. Because now Yuri Plisetsky was the undefeated champion for the second time in a row of the Grand Prix Final after being robbed of his title by JJ and even once by Otabek. Now _he_ was the one other skaters looked up to and he had to do everything to keep with his title.

After all of the photos were taken, he greeted most of them and felt nostalgic, as he saw a group of them get together to grab dinner. He felt the sting of not having friends, Otabek or his grandfather, but let it slide as it was a feeling he was getting used to.

At least he still had Yakov.

For now, all it was left was the gala exhibition the next day and then he would be home by Monday or Tuesday.

*

“So, Yurio, aren’t you excited you’re going to skate _Oblivion_ tomorrow?” Yuri, Viktor and Yakov went out to get dinner and celebrate at a Japanese restaurant. Apparently, Yuri wasn’t the only one feeling nostalgic. The blond had remained pensive for the whole dinner and when Viktor asked with that mellow and almost condescending tone he used to tease him, his irritation got him back to the reality.

“You say it like it’s embarrassing. Of course, I’m excited.”

“Ah, I just said it because it’s so different from your usual repertoire. I didn’t peg you as a sappy person.”

Yuri rolled his eyes. Since Viktor heard the piece, he’d teased him a lot about _why_ he decided to skate it. It was obvious, he thought, but he didn’t want to say it out loud.

“What’s your plan for the season? Are we going to incorporate the quad axel to your routine?” Yakov ignored the on-going conversation for something more productive. He could stand so much of them teasing each other in a day.

As he was staring at his bowl of ramen, Yuri couldn’t keep away a feeling he had in his head. So, when his coach asked, he just naturally said: “I want to visit Otabek, in Almaty”.

Neither flinched. If anything, Viktor chuckled. Yuri’s face got red out of the realization of his words. “YOU CAN’T LAUGH AT ME; YOU DID THE SAME WITH KATSUDON LIKE A THOUSAND YEARS AGO WHEN YOU WERE YOUNG.”

“Can’t you like, Facetime?”

Why was Viktor being so dismissing of Yuri when he had done the same? “No, I need to see him. I just know that I need to go.”

“But do you need to go in the middle of the skating season?” Yakov hadn’t said a word, just sipped his tea calmly thinking of what his doctor had said about his heart. Those two were idiots, but the old Russian knew that if he waited enough, he could give Viktor a spoon of his own medicine.

“Yuri, you have a great skating career ahead. You can’t just throw everything to the border for a man.”

That’s when Yakov laughed. “I told you the same thing seven years ago and you went away anyway”. His voice sounded full of resentment but he was enjoying it.

“And with more reason! You did the same and nothing happened! And it’s not like I’m asking for your permission, I am just letting you know.”

Viktor was about to quarrel him, when Yakov intervened with a calmed voice. “Yuri, do you realize that neither Viktor nor I will go to Almaty to train you?”

That was a question that Yuri didn’t consider he would be asked. He mumbled awkwardly: “I never said that I would move to Almaty; I just want to see him.”

“But why? To get back together? If you did, would he move here where he doesn’t have a family or a job?” The old man took a pause to think. About love he didn’t know a thing, but all of his skating years as a coach gave him some wisdom. “Altin must be going through a process every skater face at the end of their career. It is messy and painful even if you do something skating-related, but it is a turning point in our life. He needs to find a new path. Being 25 or 26 used to be the peak years for a figure skater. Now it looks like it’s 22 because skaters _your age_ are the ones with the force and stamina to do the difficult jumps, to break the records other _older_ skaters set before them. If _you_ want to keep being the best, you’ll need to use every second of your time to train and get better or other people _will_ _take your place_. More so now that we are mid-season.”

The conversation went cold. Even Viktor thought that was harsh for Yakov.

“Don’t get me wrong. I liked Altin and I think he liked you too a lot. But consider if it’s the right moment for _both of you_ to get back together.”

Yuri stayed silent.

*

A soft giggle could be heard from Otabek’s room. As Alexei got closer, the giggles got louder and the murmurs of what sounded as a one-sided conversation became evident. The dark-haired boy rolled his eyes and let out a sigh as this was becoming some sort of a routine for them. He knocked on the door twice.

“Beka, are you up?”

He took a few steps back, waiting for whoever was in his brother’s room to get out. There was a grunt and then the sound of clothes being put on. Another giggle. A tall fair man got out of the Kazakh’s room moments later. Red haired, with a pointy nose and what appeared to be too tight and too skimpy night clothes for the cold weather of the Kazakh December. The man had his shoes and coat on his hands and didn’t even bother to look at Alexei as he passed by. They always looked so sure on how to get out of the house, so proud like they owned the place, like they were going to come back. He waited a few seconds and then decided to go in. This was going to be a rough morning.

Otabek’s room reeked of stale sex and smoke as the man himself, who was sitting on the bed, lighting a cigarette like it was nobody’s business. “I need to take a shower.” He said after taking two or three puffs from it, getting up to search for his clothes. The room was messy and dark, the curtains always closed. It hurt Alexei to see his brother like that, with dark circles under his eyes, an always defensive gaze and a bad attitude none of them knew he had. But, at least, it was nothing compared to the Otabek who got out of the plane months ago.

“This needs to stop.”

“Don’t want to.”

He put out his smoke on an ashtray by his desk. A photo of him and a blond was badly rotated beside it, but it was there. Otabek entered the bathroom and left the door open so his brother could talk to him while he showered, like they always did.

“What kind of example are you giving to your little brother and sister? That people can be used at one’s expense? That they can be _used_ by an asshole?”

Otabek took his time to think about it. His brother knew how to get to him. “Today is a school day, they aren’t even here.”

“Beka, it’s Sunday.” Alexei’s tone was more irritated than usual, his morning pep talk was a lot stingier. He heard the water running out and a few moments later the Kazakh appeared showered with only a black swimsuit that looked like biker shorts. His brother raised his brow, as if wondering if he was going to go out like that. The former-skater dried his hair with a towel, that he later dropped on the floor on his way to the bed. He lay on his side, turning his back to his brother.

“Alyosha, you are a pain in the ass.”

“I know that you are not feeling your best. But today, please, give it a try.” Otabek didn’t reply to the sudden soft tone of his brother. Alexei, not seeing how could it be said in a better way, pronounced slowly: “You know, Plisetsky is-”

But his words were cut by a cold “I know” from his brother. He didn’t want to talk _again_ about the subject. Alexei sighed out of frustration.

“Downstairs. Plisetsky is downstairs.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yuri doing whatever the fuck he wants is a mood.
> 
> I spent all my morning reading about Almaty, seeing travel blogs and videos of the city AND IT IS SO PRETTY.
> 
> Also I read a little about Denis Ten and his road through the skating world being a Kazakh and that made me understand Otabek even more. Also, he was a sweetheart :( 
> 
> It'll all make sense in the future. (I hope)


	12. The Plan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I came here with a double update. LOL  
> I swear I have better things to do, but when I think about the rest of the story I get itchy and can't do anything else until I write it.

“Spit it, Plisetsky.”

Yuri looked at the rink with a rather angry face. He denied to look at Viktor. They sat through all the gala together and by now there were only a few acts left before it was Yuri’s turn. Because he won in the singles male division, his performance was the final act.

“You break the man apart, pretend that nothing happened, won the Grand Prix Final only to skate to the saddest tango ever and then you say you want to ‘visit him’ after everything ends? That’s bullshit and you know it.”

Yuri remained silent. But Viktor didn’t give in.

“If you only want to ruffle some feathers, let me tell you, that would be cruel… Even for you.”

They clapped at the end of the pairs exhibition who won the 4th place. Now it was time for the 3rd places. Yuri took advantage of the noise to curse the silver-haired man.

“I would never hurt Otabek… Like that” Yuri finally stared at Viktor, hurt by his comment. Though he was going to perform a really moving piece, his costume was somewhat conservative. His hair was down and he only got a black v-neck t-shirt, dark gloves and dark pants (“ _I want my performance to speak for itself_ ”). He retreated his gaze, thinking about what the Russian had told him days before the competition:

_“You know? I’ve seen you skate to Oblivion for a thousand times. And your performance is always sad and good, of course, but I can’t tell what do you want to convey with it. Is it the sudden act of realizing one was unaware of something, is it about trying to forget, is it longing about the past?”_

They went silent for the next performances until the 1st places exhibitions for every division were starting. Soon it would be Yuri’s turn. The got up from their seats to get closer the stage where Yuri would be entering the rink.

“You know I’ll support you at every decision you take. But please be conscious of people’s feelings before you cause harm with your indecision. Think thoroughly at what do you want.”

He had his arms crossed tightly, but softened his grip when somehow, he understood what Viktor was trying to say.

The first place of the singles ladies skated to a happy tune for her exhibition. She was really young for what he knew, with a bright future waiting for her. That made him remember when he was her age. Back then he knew exactly what he wanted. To be the best, the best of the best, to out throne Nikiforov and everyone that got in his way. His life was all skating and nothing else mattered.

But what did Yuri want now? His thoughts were torn between skating and a beautiful Kazakh who mumbled every morning they had woken up together how much he loved him. Did he longed for Otabek because he wanted him to come back or because their relationship would never be the same?

Was Oblivion a desperate call for a loved one or a cry from a lost past?

It wasn’t long till he heard his name being called to the stage. The crowd were ecstatic, he was a people’s favorite this season. He got to the rink and while he did some lapses around it, he smiled and waved, enjoying even if for a few seconds the simplicity of the present. He had been thinking about the past a lot, but this moment would only last for a wink before it became another memory.

Without the pressure of the competition he skated to his short program and then his free skate, longing more to skate his other piece. He dialed down some of his jumps, preferring to keep his energy reserved for that moment.

After he finished his free skate, he wondered again: what did he want _for the future_? The crowd was more and more excited clapping at his performance. He got what he wanted back then. This. To be the best of the best. What did he want now? Maybe his performance was about that: forgetting what he wanted the most.

He got back to the center of the rink. Breathe in, breath out. His short program started with his hand raised, as if he was trying to reach or grab for something. But the Oblivion, the longing of the past, no, the longing for his future, that started with his hand on his heart as if he was trying to contain it on his chest.

Breathe in, breath out. The music started.

He wanted so much to kiss Otabek again and forever.

*

_Maybe this was a bad idea._

Yuri wondered how he had got into that kind trouble while sitting on Otabek’s dining room, at his home, in his hometown, waiting, just waiting.

*

He got back to St. Petersburg set on visiting the Kazakh to… He wanted to say gain him back, but of course there was also a little voice in the back of his head saying that maybe Otabek didn’t loved him _at all_. He was trying to decide on the logistics of everything (he knew Otabek was in Almaty, but did he have his own place? Did he return to his family’s home? What would he say to the Kazakh? What would he do in case he didn’t loved him?) when he found out all of friends were already aware but more so, on board with his plan.

The same Monday he got back, his friends had thrown him a surprise party at his own home that soon became the center of the gossip about Yuri’s love life. When he listened to Mila saying how excited she was to visit Kazakhstan and everyone sharing their plans for their “vacation” at his ex-boyfriend’s hometown, Yuri could swear he was going to lose it.

“Who the hell told you? Why is everybody suddenly so on board with this? Who the hell invited you?”

Mila giggled and stick out her tongue before Yuri could curse her.

“We watched your exhibition gala on live TV and when it was over Viktor told us it was a piece you performed to say to your long-lost love that you wanted him back.”

“BUT HOW DID HE TOLD YOU THAT?”

“Through a secret group chat, of course.”

Yuuri interrupted the conversation after he read a text he got. “Ah! Pichit says he can fly on Saturday after all!” Everyone cheered.

“Pichit lives on Thailand” Yuri said baffled.

“Yeah, but I missed him, and it was a good excuse to get the group together.”

“Christophe is going to come too, with Masumi.”

“I heard they got married last year in Switzerland, right? How was the wedding?”

And they all started to talk about nonsense while Yuri stared, oh, so violently at Viktor, who smiled at him happily.

“You can’t come, I need to do this alone!”

“What a shame, because we already got everyone’s plane tickets for two weeks at Kazakhstan.”

They couldn’t get together for his Grand Prix Final but for _that_ they could make the time.

*

The same Sunday they arrived on Almaty, they went straight to the Kazakh house from the airport. Well, not exactly. Yuri didn’t remember how to get there, so they were dropped at the First President Park and started to walk until Yuri got familiarized with some of his surroundings. It was cold, it was December, but at least it wasn’t as cold…

“… As Yuri’s heart” Everyone laughed at Pichit’s joke. He didn’t miss that bastard.

They were a large group of nine people so they grabbed people’s attention. He was traveling with Yuuri, Viktor, Mila, Sara, Georgi, Pichit, Christophe and Masumi. Being so ethnically diverse, people surely thought they were all tourists. Well, they were, but this was a business trip. His business was getting Otabek back. For one second he thought of asking some stranger for his ex-boyfriend’s direction, but even if Otabek was one of the country’s hero, that a normal person knew where he lived would be weird.

At least the landscape was beautiful. It was a vibrant city surrounded by the Alatau mountains and one could see them practically anywhere in the horizon.

“So, Yuri, how come you don’t remember where Otabek lived? You came here quite some times, right?” Yuri became nervous by the Japanese’s question, his ears getting redder trying to find the words.

“Well, I visited a couple times when we were friends, but it was only for a day or two. And when we became a couple…”

Viktor squealed as if offended by the pause Yuri did. “You used your boyfriend’s family vacation to have sex. Shame on you, Plisetsky”. The whole group laughed. Although he was embarrassed, he liked that. _His boyfriend_.

After walking way for way too much, and circling the same streets over and over again, Yuri stopped, thinking they already got to the Kazakh’s house. It was 9 am and a Sunday so someone _must_ be home. They gathered in a circle to go over _their_ plan (because of course they’d meddled all week until they couldn’t in all of the ups and downs of his relationship with Otabek to make a plan). Christophe summoned it like that: “First, we must know where Otabek is; then, we’ll convince Otabek to talk to Yuri; lastly, Yuri will win Otabek back with some…” The Swiss winked at Yuri while shaking his pump in front of his face as if doing a blowjob. He didn’t miss that bastard either.

“And if all fails, we’ll get drunk. And if everything goes well, we’ll get drunk too.”

This was the scariest thing he had ever done in life. And he had done a quad axel on an international competition as a last-minute resource to not lose. But having them with him made it not scary.

Yuri left his luggage with the group who waited on the side walk (because the blond didn’t want to waste a second in Almaty without seeing the Kazakh, also because their check-in was until 3 pm). He knocked on Otabek’s family door twice and waited.

*

Yuri heard some Kazakh through the door until a tiny woman opened it. She had a serious face and long black hair, the same color as Otabek, but looked like the warmest person ever when she smiled at him.

“Yuratchka! What a relief you are visiting us! Come in, come in!” He expected everything from her mother except to be so warm to him. He got in, took off his shoes and got dragged to the dining room quickly by his ex-mother in law.

“Do you want tea? Of course, you want some. Let me get some for you”. She looked nervous, and Yuri just nodded. The kitchen was just in front of the dining room, but instead she looked to Yuri’s right to what he remembered was the living room on the other side of the hall and said something in a rapid Kazakh he couldn’t understand. He got the words “Alyosha”, that’s what they called Otabek’s older brother, and the Russian words for kitten and bear. Well, not bear, but _bear cub_. Yuri knew that’s how Otabek’s family called him affectionately. At least his mom did.

_“Alyosha, (Yuri) is here. I’ll go get (Otabek). Receive our guest. I think (Otabek)’s got a hussy in his room again.”_

Then, a familiar head poked through the hall and he recognized Alexei, who looked at him surprised. Otabek’s mom yelled at him something in Kazakh (“ _Serve the tea!”_ ) while she got upstairs. Alexei replied shortly and changed to Russian when greeting the blond.

“Hey, if it isn’t the Russian Princess. What are you doing here?” Alexei smiled in what Yuri could describe was a passive-aggressive way. Even if he looked like Otabek but in a different palette of colors (his ex-boyfriend was more tanned), he didn’t exude Otabek’s warmness.

Yuri was about to replied pissed that it was _fairy_ and not _princess_ when his ex-in law called for Alexei while she got off the stairs (“ _Ugh, he’s got a hussy in there, Alyosha, go talk to him”_ ). Without saying anything more, the dark-haired took off and went upstairs.

“I’ll be with you in a second, Yuratchka!” Her mom smiled at him like nothing happened while going to the kitchen with a rapid pace. He knew something _was_ happening but couldn’t get ahold of what. Certainly, he didn’t expect her mom to be so warm. Did they know he was the one who broke up with Otabek?

Then, the front door opened and a girl around his age came through with a bag of produce. While taking off her shoes, the girl almost crashes with a red-haired man who, in that moment went down the stairs. The man faked smiled at her, put on his shoes and without saying anything more, got through the door. The girl, who Yuri now recognized as Sabina, Otabek’s younger sister, rolled her eyes and said with a sarcastic Russian “Well, we knew Otabek had a type, but at least he’s diversifying now. Mom, do you know why there is a group of ethnically diverse people outside our house?” She hadn’t noticed Yuri yet, but to get to the kitchen she had to pass by him.

Maybe this was a bad idea. Maybe he needed to run away. Nope. He wasn’t ready for this type of scenario. He would be the first to uncap the vodka. They’ll go back to Russia immediately and get drunk there. Good thing they didn’t even checked in at the hotel yet.

Yuri got up making a loud noise with his chair and, until then, she realized he was there.

“Yuri! It’s been a while, how are you?” She left the bag of produce on the table as she got close to him to hug him. Yuri looked between confused, pissed and embarrassed.

“Oh, are you leaving us so soon? It looks like you didn’t even have tea.” She smiled in the same passive-aggressive way his brother did.

Yuri replied with a fake smile: “Maybe I’ll come back another time. I think I came in the wrong moment.”

“Oh, for so many gold medals I didn’t think you would give up so easily. Like a loser.” She replied bubbly like it was nothing.

That stung Yuri to the core. “I don’t.” He replied cold and sharp, remembering what he came in for.

“Good! Then sit. I’ll go get the tea.”

_Fuck._

He sat again at the table. The girl left to the kitchen with her bag of produce while talking to her mother in a quick Kazakh he couldn’t even grasp.

He repeated the plan in his head: find Otabek, convince Otabek to talk to him, win him over with blowjobs. No, that wasn’t it. It was: Find Otabek, don’t let his family kill Yuri, talk to him, win him over with blowjobs. -G-e-t -d-r-u-n-k-.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What does growing up mean to you? 
> 
> For Yuri it is his path to adulthood. He is discovering that he is not a baby anymore (that's why he's so obsessed with his oldest rivals and /the past/). But also, that he needs to be sincere with what he wants. That's why Viktor keeps on pestering and teasing him. But at the end of the day he's supportive in his own bully way. ¿?
> 
> I found that in Kazakhstan most people talk Russian (it's an elitist language according to the people on the internet) but some of them still speak Kazakh (it depends on the region), that they take their shoes off before entering someone's house and that they are obsessed with having tea ¿? Again, I found this on the internet, I don't mean to be disrespectful of them or their culture in any way. If I do, please tell me.


	13. Coping with one's life

When Alexei got to the airport a few months ago to pick up his little brother, he didn’t expect to find him like that. Otabek was quiet at usual, but there was an aura around him, like he was in so much pain and was trying to conceal it. He didn’t mention a thing on the way home, he thought maybe the best would be to not talk about it.

Their mother received Otabek with open arms. They knew he had retired officially from figure skating but nothing else. She didn’t seem bothered by that. He missed her son a lot and if he wanted to come back home, she would accept him no matter what. For his skating career she didn’t asked a thing, the fact that he moved back to her home, she didn’t flinch either, but where was his cute little boyfriend, that she couldn’t stop asking about.

For the first few days, Otabek took every question, every comment, every hit with a somewhat stoic face up to the fourth or fifth day when their sister couldn’t stand it and told their mom to shut up about the blond, that maybe they had broken up. Otabek just sat there at the family table drinking his tea.

Alexei got worried, thinking that his brother maybe had gone mute.

“Why don’t you talk to Otabek?” When Sabina reached to him, he shrugged her off immediately.

“He’s a man, he’ll get over whatever issue he has on his own.” And that got him the lecture of his life. He got called every name on the book, but even more so, he got criminalized for being the worst brother ever. With that he could deal, she didn’t know how men solved their problems, but it struck him to the core when she mentioned:

“He looks like when he moved back to Almaty a few years ago. He looks numb. You can’t leave him alone like that.”

Ever since Otabek was young and decided to be a figure skater, their family had done _everything_ they could to help him with his career. Since he was little, he moved alone to Moscow to train, then to the US, then to Canada. It was an economic burden for them but it was worth it because their brother did everything to win. Soon, other people recognized his talents and got sponsored. He became a national symbol on a country that was as old as new, with a thousand years of culture, but that didn’t have more than 20 years from being independent. Because of that, Kazakhstan didn’t have the infrastructure to support its own athletes, at least not yet.

At first, they thought that had nothing to do with them as Otabek was thriving in other countries always getting to the podium, no matter the place. Until one day, while seeing him competing on TV, they realized he was alone at the kiss & cry. The other skaters always had a coach, a parent, even their choreographer by their side but Otabek… Otabek was alone. Sabina, at the young age of 14, started to cry, saying that her 17-year-old brother looked lonely and sad even if Otabek was waving to the camera with a shy smile as they announced his score.

He did look lonely.

Otabek finally got back to Almaty when he was 19, but they found something weird in him. Otabek knew how to take care of himself, he had done so for more than 10 years, but that solitude, that independence, made him unable to take care of _himself_ in a more personal aspect. He was numb, looked lost, couldn’t stand being with other people and flinched and looked uncomfortable when, for example, he got sick and his mother took care of him.

It took them lots of pampering and emotional support, but with a few months back home, he became warm again. He looked for their company, started hanging out more with his other siblings, with his childhood friends. He started DJing and doing other activities as his group of friends expanded. Took a while, but Otabek was returning to his balance.

Of course, he was still going back and forth in between Almaty and international competitions but at least most of the time he had his family and also a Russian friend by the surname of Plisetsky that was starting to be Otabek’s central topic. _Yuri did this, Yuri did that, Yuri won that competition, Yuri disliked that food._ They couldn’t care less about what Yuri did or didn’t do, but they were happy that Otabek at last wasn’t alone anymore.

And that boy Plisetsky even visited them a couple of times. It was always for some sort of competition so he couldn’t stay around that much but, even if ill-tempered, _he liked_ Otabek and was always watching him, aware of his necessities.

So, when Otabek decided to move back to Russia to train three years ago under the pretense that he wanted to keep up with skating under the wing of other trainers, they let him go. At least they knew that in St. Petersburg he was going to be with Yuri (her mother was already praying for them to become a couple, said that, if they could, they would give her handsome grandchildren) and not alone. They didn’t get surprised when they announced they had become a couple. But by that, for Otabek’s family it was getting more and difficult every day to stay in touch with Otabek because of his schedule, training, DJ gigs and then because of Yuri.

_I was with Yuri, that’s why I couldn’t pick up._

At first, Alexei suspected that Yuri was somewhat toxic to his baby brother, but when they visited Almaty (as a couple) he just discovered (by some bad luck or some God that hated him out there) that they just got distracted having sex. Lots of it.

In the last few months, their videocalls with Otabek became erratic. When he did, he complained about his hip, about not being able to jump as high anymore, that he had lost some sponsorships with the rise and thrive of other younger-not injured skaters. Once he had a private videocall with Otabek who confessed of thinking of proposing to Yuri. At least he still was lovestruck. But he just heard him talk about that just one time. The next call he got from him was the same Monday he picked him up at the airport, saying that he was going to come back _home_.

And so, Operation-Otabek started. Alexei called his brother’s friends. Apparently, they hadn’t heard that much from him either but were happy to know he was back in Almaty. Since then, he wasn’t left alone even for a day, and if they did, it was to give him some space in the afternoon. Sabina suggested to take Otabek’s phone away but they didn’t because he didn’t even look at it, not even when it rang all day as some friend was trying to reach out. If he was not going to answer what was the point on having the sound on? There was no ringtone that could make him care.

Otabek spent most of his day with friends and family. If he wasn’t taken out for a random trip somewhere, his childhood best friend, Dmtri, took him out to swim in the morning, then he ate lunch with his family and spent the afternoon mixing in his room until the night arrived. And that’s when his other friends came looking for him to party.

Alexei had talked to Dmtri about him going out every night and he replied that Otabek needed to release some steam off. The man assured him that he was being looked after but it irritated him that Dmtri’s concept of being looked after sometimes meant to be ravished by some one-night-stand. Dmtri shrugged it off, saying that it had helped his friend to open up.

Otabek wasn’t talking to Alexei, but he started to talk to Dmtri. At least he had that, but of course, they still had a long way to go before his brother could get back to normal.

So, when the dark-haired Kazakh saw a blond on his dining room appearing unexpectedly and uninvitedly, he became suspicious that maybe all of that numb-Otabek was because of him. And he didn’t like that at all. Every morning he “talked” to Otabek about a different topic, trying to give unsolicited advice for things he didn’t even knew what his brother’s stance was. Was he angry about his DJ career? About Plisetsky? Sad about skating? About his hip injury? But on the only topic he was always cut off was the blond thing. So, it all made sense now.

When he said “Plisetsky is downstairs” he thought his brother wouldn’t want to go down. He thought finally they would talk about that which bothered him a lot. He would kindly invite the blond to go away as his brother’s wishes and soon this will all be over. But no. Not at all. Not at fucking all.

_“Fuck, Beka, you can’t go down, you don’t even know what he’s doing here, you need to think this through.”_ He switched to Kazakh as he tried to stop his brother, who stood up quickly to see. There was something in his gaze that said that he _needed_ to see it for himself.

*

When Otabek got down, half-naked, with his hair still wet and messy from his shower, almost falling on the stairs trying to escape from his brother, he didn’t find the blond. He found his dining room filled with mostly Russians, a Swiss, an Italian, a Thai and two Japanese.

“Ah, baby bear! Look who came to see you!”

And there he was, standing in the back, looking at a picture on the wall of them together he never bothered to take out.

Yuri Plisetsky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's the end of my double update.  
> For Otabek's back story I based it loosely on Denis Ten's life. He did stood at the kiss & cry alone one time because his coach lost his passport or something like that. 
> 
> :(
> 
> I think Otabek had to grow up so early in his life that he couldn't develop the best coping mechanisms for emotional distress, even if he looks like he has his shit together. So he struggles about /the future/.
> 
> Also, he's bad at communicating things straight, but so does Yuri. lol  
> Growing up is ALWAYS painful. But it helps in the way we relate to other people in our life.
> 
> Update: If I wrote Alexei like a sexist dude (saying shit like "That's not how men do things", "men don't say stuff") is to show how toxic that type of masculinity is and what can it do to someone. Maybe Beka learned from his big brother to shut everyone out, because that type of thinking seems to run in the family by what he said. And maybe his big brother learned it from our fucked up society. But this story is about growing up and at least Alexei is changing by being concerned and actively doing something for the wellbeing of his brother's mental health and also calling him out for sleeping around.  
> (I had to listen to a sexist dude at work, so I'm pissed. I just wanted to make things clear that I don't condone that type of behavior, it's just another way to explain where Beka's bad coping mechanisms come from)


	14. Go big or go home?

While in the kitchen, Sabina talked to her mom in a rapid Kazakh:

_“Mom, what is he doing here?”_

_“I don’t know, dear, but isn’t it a delight?_ ” The woman was busy preparing a way too large quantity of food and preparing a way too large quantity of tea even for the whole family. Then, she got on her tiptoes opening the kitchen window that faced the street. “ _I think he also brought Otabek’s old teammates. There is that Japanese and then that man with the hair that looks like an inverted flan._ ”

Sabina looked at her mother baffled: “ _How do you know that?”_

“ _I always remember the handsome ones_ ” Then, she yelled to the street where the group was: “Hey! Are you friends of our Otabek?”

“Yes! We are!”

“Pichit!” Yuuri tried to calm down his friend who waved like it was nothing to the woman yelling from the house.

“What? I’m cold, Yuri is taking way too long and I’m good with moms.”

“The tea is ready! Come on in!”

Then, the woman grabbed Sabina by the arm and pushed her to the get the door and welcome the group to their house while she got the tea and the food to the dining room.

It all happened in a second. Soon there were 11 people crowded in a room that barely fit them and everyone was talking in their own language while Otabek’s mom tried to convince Yuri to look at Otabek’s baby photos again (because she did that every time they visited) and Yuri didn’t like the weirdness of it all. No one was even sitting at the dining table because they needed more chairs and also there was a lot of movement because of course in their own group they were catching up as they hadn’t seen Pichit, Chris and Masumi in a long time, so everyone was trying to hear everyone’s chatter and changing places. Sabina was in a corner judging him for what he could tell by her I’m-not-pleased-that-you-are-invading-my-house look. The minute Otabek’s mom let him go (she had him grabbed by the arm) to look for another photo album at the living room, Yuri got to the back of the room where he could, at least, be surrounded by his friends who were too busy and too comfortable talking and catching up at his ex’s house.

Even with all of the noise, they could hear some ruckus going on upstairs, but apparently none of them cared as they kept on talking, eating and drinking tea. Yuri couldn’t roll his eyes even more, but tried to focus on something like the photos at Otabek’s wall to distract him from the excruciating anxiety that it was to know his ex-boyfriend/love of his life/man of his wet dreams was, probably, upstairs.

There was one photo that caught his attention. And it was of _them,_ from way before Otabek even moved to St. Petersburg, at a competition when the Kazakh took the gold from him. He remembered that day with joy and got surprised of the smile he had on the picture while holding a silver medal with his best friend by his side. It was honest, bright and sincere.

He got back to the reality when he heard his friends cheer on happily, saying things like _Beka_ , _Altin_ , and _we are so glad to see you again_ , and when his eyes met the Kazakh’s gaze he was still smiling fondly because of the picture.

He wanted to die right then and there. He was smiling to the man he had broken up to. And he was half naked and looking sexy, had he been swimming? Because he could see some abs right there. This couldn’t get worse.

“ _Ah, he was always such a sight for sore eyes_ ” The Swiss said softly in French while sipping his tea like it was nothing. That fucker.

But, before Yuri could see how Otabek would react to him being there, he was tackled by another Kazakh.

*

“Hey, you can’t go swimming like that. It’s freezing out there, you idiot.”

Otabek looked at Dmtri with the biggest smile ever. “H-Hey” he said a little confused but happy and of course trying to get ahold of the situation.

 _“We have guests here, please take him out”_ Alexei switched the conversation to Kazah as he finished to climb down the stairs.

 _“We are having tea, you can’t go.”_ Otabek’s mom, who had just reappeared moments before from the living room with two or three family albums, complained grabbing his son by the arm. The Kazakh by the name of Dmtri looked to the dining room and waved to the crowd, not really giving a crap of who they were. Instead, he punched his friend’s arm, rather happy to see _him_ that happy. _“Don’t you have a good attitude today? Was that boy nice to you? He looked feisty.”_

The rest of the Russian group returned to their conversation, because if the Kazakhs were talking in Kazakh, they would talk privately too. At least the Japanese reached to Yuri to grab his hand as his family and that other man was taking all of Otabek’s attention. “Are you ok?” He asked with a worried look to which Yuri could only reply with a serious nod. He needed Otabek again, he needed their eyes to meet, but it appeared like every time he turned away, the Kazakh looked at him and so on.

*

Was there a word for the sudden realization of missing someone only when you see them after a long time? Like suddenly he could breathe again? Like it was their presence what your life lacked? Because that’s what Otabek felt at the moment he saw Yuri. He was thrilled. And if it wasn’t for his friend who pushed him as he entered the house, Yuri would’ve seen the idiotic smile on his face. He smiled at Alyosha who was already judging him so hard but he didn’t care. He couldn’t think either. He was just extremely happy.

After the negotiations were done without him _(“You can go swim after you’ve at least one cup of tea with our guests who came to see you”_ ) he was exhorted to go to his room again to put on something decent. Her mom, though, made Alexei and Dmtri grab some chairs from the other room so everyone could sit at the dining table. _“And call your little brother too”_. He could only see Yuri once before getting pushed out of the room.

Did he have any clean clothes at all?

*

With all of the movement and the noise of Kazakh, Japanese and Russian mixed in and the people moving so much in such a crowded room, Yuri could only meet Beka’s gaze once. It lasted for only a second but he felt it like a whole minute. Like they could talk only with their eyes. He squinted when he saw the Kazakh like asking without words _who the hell is that guy?_ And Yuri could swear, SWEAR TO EVERY EXISTING GOD EVER, that Beka raised his brow and smiled a little as a form of saying _don’t you remember? This is what’s-his-name._

And Yuri paled and felt like his soul left his body, all at the same time, because _they still had it_. Could he…? As every one of the Altin family dispersed, and _his_ Kazakh went upstairs again, Yuri thought of screwing _their_ plan and just go and win Otabek over with some make up sex. No one would notice if, in a moment like that, he just went after him, locked his room’s door and jumped on him, no questions asked. Who cares that another man had left his room earlier, if he was the last one to ride that dick forever? He could surely live with that.

“You are drooling, Plisetsky. Go big or go home. But do it now.” Was he getting Christophe Giacometti’s, certified sex-God, approval for this?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The thirst is real.
> 
> I kept on updating fast because I knew where I wanted this story to go until this moment. Now I'm lost again, HAHAHA.
> 
> I think Yuri getting horny is more of a sign of stress/being too pent up from the competition. But then again, who wouldn't if they saw Otabek-I've-been-swimming-every-day-for-hours-to-cope-with-these-feelings-Altin? 
> 
> I feel like the next chapter will be another filler as my mind needs to decide what the hell am I going to do with a group of ethnically diverse people for two weeks at Kazakhstan with Otabek's friends on the mix and also the most important question, IF they got back together, what would Otabek do? Move back to St. Petersburg? 
> 
> Do I smell a long distance relationship? 
> 
> I don't judge Beka for being automatically happy after he saw Yuri because at least /he/ hadn't seen him in a while.  
> I've been happy at seeing my ex's ex but as a reflex. For me it was sort of like "OH! YOU EXIST! RIGHT! I'M SO HAPPY OF SEEING YOU AGAIN" It was really weird lol. Like, what is object permanence? We don't know that in this household. 
> 
> Everyone is so rude to each other, lol, I can see that happening.


	15. There's a light that never goes out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After giving it much thought and knowing where I want this story to go, it saddens me to write that I had to change the tags and that I need to give you trigger warning for depression.
> 
> IF YOU ARE IN A BAD PLACE RIGHT NOW and think that you may feel bad reading references of depression, I invite you to skip this chapter and talk to a friend (or me, we can talk about otayuri)
> 
> I'll give you the otayuri fluff we all deserve maybe in the next chapter and warn you in the future if any other chapter has references to depression.

Otabek got to his room as fast as he could and when he was finally alone (again) with the time and space to gather his thoughts, to calm his racing heart, he slowly realized something.

No, no, no, that couldn’t be.

Creeping thoughts began pestering his mind while he tried to find clothes under the mess his room was. He did find a hoodie, he just needed clean… pants, shorts, runner trousers, whatever he could find. His room smelled like sex and smoke, with a faint of stale coffee. There were tons of cups placed in whatever plane space he could look at. His once proud wall of achievements was darkened by the shadows of a badly lit room, with the curtains always closed. There was a suitcase, still full of his stuff from St. Petersburg, half opened. He upended on the floor carelessly to find clothes, some photos, memorabilia, mixing boards and headphones he thought he had lost.

No skates.

No skates.

No skates.

After moving some things around, not really prepared to look at his memories from St. Petersburg yet, he found simple dark jeans and some underwear. Both clean. Both smelling like Russia. He went to his bathroom to change and once there he could _finally_ see himself on the mirror. He touched his badly shaved stubble, the dark circles under his eyes, let his fingers slide through his messy, uncut hair, touched his dry skin from hours on the pool’s chlorine that clashed strikingly with the soft, clean clothes.

He had no shaving cream nor any kind of beauty product. Not that he used much of it, but at least he used to have _enough_.

Got back to his room, stumbling his hand on his desk until he found his package of cigarettes but toppling his ashtray on an old framed photo by accident. He wouldn’t have noticed it as it was almost facing to the wall.

He slipped to the floor with his back rested on one of the desk’s legs. He lit his smoke. Took one, two, three puffs.

And when his brother came into the room asking really worried what was wrong, he could only reply with a lost look:

“I ran out of shaving cream”.

When he rose his gaze again, he found Dmtri and not his brother.

The man sat beside him silently for as long as he had his cigarette lit.

Otabek inhaled the smoke until the heat burned his fingertips, put out what was left of it on the wall. When his friend slowly put his arm around him, he leaned on and started to cry.

“I have nothing left, Dmtri. Nothing at all.”

*

There were 15 people in a dining room made for perhaps 8. Yuri quickly had to ditch his plan to sneak on Otabek’s room as all the Altin kin quickly returned to where they were. Because of the crowded Otabek’s littlest brother was excused after saying hello and disappeared right after to his room. Mrs. Altin, though, seemed delighted by the company and quickly organized the seating disposal by acquaintance and civil status: “Married people cannot sit together and single people cannot sit on the corners”. Why the corners? Apparently, it was a common saying that if one was single and sat on the corner of a table, that person wouldn’t marry at all. How thoughtful.

She sat on the head of the table with Sabina by her side. Christophe and Masumi each sat on the corners of the back of the room while Katsuki and Nikiforov by the head. Mila and Sara had to sit facing each other (they chose to sit at the end of Christophe, away from him) while Pichit, Georgi and him sat at one of the sides of the table while the Kazaks Alexei, Otabek and Otabek’s friend did on the opposite. Except that Otabek never got back and soon his brother disappeared too. Half of the table were talking with Mrs. Altin as they were questioned about everything related to their life. They had to hear Yuuri’s and Viktor’s love story (again) ( _I flew all the way to Japan just to see Yuuri_ ), which fortunately didn’t raise any brows of the Kazakhs, Pichit entertained with his modeling stories and Georgi talked about what he was doing at the moment, as he decided to enter college and was struggling with his Arts major. The remaining Kazakh, Otabek’s friend, stayed silent but he caught him staring (and smiling to him) more than once, which creeped Yuri out but that couldn’t be helped. He seemed familiar but the blond couldn’t get ahold of where and when he had seen him. The other half of the table, Mila, Sara, Chris and Masumi were talking about Switzerland and what one could do over there at the summer.

For a second Yuri believed that he sat at loser’s end of the table.

He looked from time to time to the stairs, hoping to see Otabek come down at any moment. But the only one he could see doing that was Alexei, seemingly disturbed. He whispered to the other Kazakh something he couldn’t understand and they switched places, leaving the room without saying anything to go upstairs. Neither Otabek’s mom nor Sabina said or did anything but Yuri could swear he saw them exchanging glances.

“So, Yuri” Alexei interrupted any flow of conversation going, with an angry tone in his voice. “What are _you_ doing here?”

“Visiting.”

“But why?”

“Because.”

“You could’ve called.”

“We wanted to make an entrance.”

“Well, congratulations, because _you did_.”

That was cold. Like he was entirely angry about his mere existence. Though Yuri got taken aback by that attitude (he wasn’t a saint, after all, they did came uninvited at his house to see his brother, who he rejected once), he didn’t give in.

“I just want to talk to him.” He tried to sound peaceful and to not let the irritation get to his voice but he just came up as surly.

“We have some photos of Otabek at the rink. Would you like to see?” Viktor cut the conversation with his easygoing voice and attitude, distracting Otabek’s mom who already established herself as a big fan of photos.

“Yes! That would be divine!”

*

They stayed for an hour or so having tea until all the treats were finished and all the recommendations for places to visit were said, when the group collectively decided that they had overstayed their visit. Alexei didn’t talk again after his brief conversation with Yuri but just sulked on the table as if he was studying everyone in. For Yuri it seemed eerie that someone who looked so much like Otabek could be that cold. The seriousness and the quietness, those he had. But there was something inherently warm about his ex-boyfriend that set him apart not just from his family but from anyone else.

They had called two taxis hoping that one of them could take the extra-passenger and waited outside with the rest of the Altin family. Yuri was disappointed and couldn’t hide his gloomy face because he got to see Otabek only once. Even Katsuki stood by his side and intertwined their arms without saying anything else. Good. Because he would insult anyone who gave him unsolicited pity/comfort.

Viktor and Pichit were too busy talking to Otabek’s mom and even exchanging telephone numbers when Yuri heard a familiar voice talking and even laughing. He was about to turn but Yuuri tightened his grip around his arm. What the…?

Soon all of his friends surrounded Otabek by what he could hear while he had to stay and talk to the taxi driver with the Japanese. The man refused to take a fifth passenger and they had to agree to put only so many suitcases on the back of the cab out of fear of overweighting the car. The second taxi arrived shortly after, and denied to comply for the same reasons. The group gathered trying to decide who was going in which cab and trying to decide if calling a third was worth it until the unknown Kazakh meddled in and said that they could take the extra person and luggage as their hotel was on their way to the natatorium.

In that moment, Otabek’s mom pulled Yuri apart from the group and hugged him tight as a farewell while everyone else were discussing the luggage distribution. She held his hands between her own and smiled kindly saying something like “It was really nice seeing you again”. Maybe that was going to be all of Otabek he would see on his trip to Kazahkstan.

“Ah, that’s right! Yuri, I have some pie on the fridge for you to take, could you go get it? You know your way around the house. I would like to say goodbye to your lovely friends.”

Yuri looked at the woman and then to the Kazakhs who had nothing to do, by their side, all staring in their own particular way and Yuri thought that if he was going to get killed it all was going to be orchestrated by that seemingly inoffensive woman. “S-sure” He replied not knowing what it was expected of him but soon he was pushed into the house direction.

He had seen Otabek distracted by their friends and helping to get the luggage to the transportation so maybe they were trying to keep them apart.

Maybe this would be the end of his romantic plan of winning his man over.

Maybe Otabek didn’t want to see him at all.

Maybe Yuri imagined the smile on his face the two brief moments they had exchanged glances.

Maybe he should give up.

He entered the house and slowly made his way to the kitchen. So little had changed since the last time he visited. And, it was such a shame because, in their own way, Otabek’s family was a warm one. They made so many sarcastic comments but they all cared of each other’s well-being.

He opened the fridge and was surprised to see a wide variety of food and dishes but none that resemble anything of a pie. There were tons of Tupperware so he figured he would have to open each and every one of them until the dessert was found. He sighed. Yuri heard footsteps getting into the kitchen and he assumed it was one of the Altin kin. He never even bothered to look as he already knew they were going to give him a dirty look anyway.

“Hey, your mom sent me to grab some pie. Do you know where it is?”

“Yeah, she sent me too.”

Yuri looked over his shoulder. There he was.

Otabek Altin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because of the covid-19 I've been working from home for 3 months now. My company decided to lend us the chairs we usually use in the office as a perk (?), and today I went to take mine home. While I waited for the administrator to write the contract that said that I would not sell the chair lol I texted my supervisor saying that I would be logging late because of the chair thing.
> 
> She dropped casually on the conversation that she has the 'rona and that she doesn't know why they haven't said that other people from my office has it too and told me to be careful of what I touch in the room. 
> 
> Only then I understood my role in this always-burning world as a fanfic writer to give you the fluff we all deserve in this times of need.  
> If I die, I want you to know that otayuri will always be endgame and love each other with all their hearts. 
> 
> I want to end this note thanking you for reading so far and for joining me in this fanfic that I assure you will end well because I love them with all my heart and they just need to talk things through and apologize for being dicks lol. 
> 
> If you feel bad or are in a bad place right now, I hope that you can find in this story the same comfort and solace that it has given me.


End file.
